The moptop hairstyle traveled down a status chain from French bohemians to the Beatles

Evidence

Oh, how they laughed at Stu Sutcliffe’s new haircut. Poor Stu had put aside his painting career in Liverpool to live in the most wretched corner of Hamburg, Germany, and play bass guitar in his mates’ rock ’n’ roll cover band with a silly pun-based name: the Beatles. And now those very Beatles—four Gene Vincent clones in pompadours held aloft with copious dollops of Brylcreem—were berating Stu for switching to a chic “Caesar cut” where the bangs fell straight down on his forehead. … The lads knew who to blame for Stu’s sudden makeover: Astrid, his “existentialist” German girlfriend. She cut his hair to resemble the local art school boys, who were in turn imitating the latest French mode. Stu spent the next few days enduring constant japes for his coiffure, but then came an unexpected turn of events. The youngest Beatle, George, asked Astrid to cut his hair the same way. John and Paul capitulated several months later. While on vacation in Paris, they realized Stu’s look would be necessary for picking up “Bohemian beauties on the Left Bank.” But chasing tail was only an alibi: after time on the Continent, John and Paul had lost confidence in their British take on American swagger and now believed Stu’s look would set them apart from the other English rock ’n’ roll bands. Despite their initial mockery, the Beatles returned to Liverpool without Stu but wearing his distinctive “moptop.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 8

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the consumer-taste-diffusion chain arguments from the Sociology of Georg Simmel and trickle-down status signaling; likely foreshadows Marx’s core model.
• CANDY: The Beatles’ famous moptop began as Stu Sutcliffe’s girlfriend copying French art-school boys, and the band mocked it before adopting it.