Talk:Pompadour (hairstyle)

Possible error in date given for men's style?
The section on the men's hairstyle says it wasn't called this until the 1950s. In the "Great Gatsby" Jay Gatsby is mentioned as having had a pompadour as seen in a photo. The novel was published in 1925 so either the hairstyle was called that for men as far back as that or it was a different style of the same name. I cannot find anything online to suggest it was not referring to a hairstyle.

Molybdomancer (talk) 14:08, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Lacking pictures
How about some more pictures? some from the 50's would be ace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.176.139 (talk) 23:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto that. alyssch (talk) 22:04, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Link in Hairspray
Is this the haircut that Link in the 2007 movie Hairspray wore? AIM95 00:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)AIM95

Hairstyle, not haircut
The page describes the pompadour as formed by combing, "sculpted" – but not a particulary haircut. I'm moving the page name accordingly. -- Deborahjay (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Crappy article
An over exhaustive list of who wore a pompadour (or a variation of it) is not the correct way to formulate an encyclopedia article. Christ, you people are stupid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.95.216.225 (talk) 18:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree that this is a bad article, but my main complaint is that it focuses on the man's hairstyle of the mid-20th-century and doesn't mention at all the original pompadour, and, I believe, the most famous version--the tall pompadour worn by women in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.153.160 (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

What would be helpful would be an actual explanation what a Pompadour is... while it can be seen from the pictures, the article only says who wore one, not what it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.132.9.45 (talk) 14:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not my area of expertise, so I won't to try to rewrite this very flawed article. But I have added a proper lede, with a basic definition of the style, and more pictures to illustrate the look in different periods.  I also put the women's section first, to accord with history and popularity.  Textorus (talk) 06:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested move
– This is the only article of three on the disambiguation page that is actually called "pompadour", thus making it the primary topic for that term. Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Powers T 19:12, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Pompadour (hairstyle) → Pompadour
 * Pompadour → Pompadour (disambiguation)
 * Oppose The town is colloquially known as Pompadour. The hairstyle is derivative from Madame de P. And there is a pompadour potato, grown in Picardy - although it doesn't have a en.wp article. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Madame de Pompadour is too big a character to subordinate. Walrasiad (talk) 05:59, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Madame de Pompadour is quite likely. As the term is an alternate name for the other two subjects, you still need to prove primary topic. -- 70.24.250.26 (talk) 06:08, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Natural disambiguation is preferable to parenthetical, per WP:PRECISION. Here the issue is between the hairstyle and the DAB page, so the woman, town, and the potato are red herrings. Kauffner (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The term "pompadour" in isolation can refer to the person, the town or the hairstyle, and no one of them is clearly primary. If anything, the person has an arguably better claim than the hairstyle. older ≠ wiser 15:12, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I find it nearly impossible to believe that the average person even knows that the hairstyle was named after a real person. Surely anyone looking for the Lady would search for more than just "Pompadour"?  Powers T 15:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason to think it is nearly impossible. Historical figures are commonly best known by their surname. older ≠ wiser 16:27, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, you know we do have the technology to answer this question. Googling brings up mainly results about the hairstyle, and nothing about Louis XV's mistress. Kauffner (talk) 16:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, and on Google books, the results are almost exclusively for Madame. older ≠ wiser 17:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * GBooks puts books with the search term in the title first, and apparently no one has written a book about the hairstyle. Kauffner (talk) 02:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, which gives an indication why the Madame is more notable from perspective of long term significance. older ≠ wiser 04:02, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Huh. I must say that this type of argument mystifies me. If she has this overpowering "long-term significance", why do you want the DAB page to be primary? The hairstyle got over 30,000 views in the last 90 days, the DAB less than 4,400. Kauffner (talk) 09:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would not object if Pompadour became a redirect to the Madame, but I expect others would. As there is disagreement about what the primary topic is, a disambiguation page is appropriate. I'm not sure what your point is in mentioning the stats. 4,400 is a rather large number for a disambiguation page. I would support using special purpose redirects on the disambiguation page to help gauge which option readers coming to the disambiguation page are looking for. older ≠ wiser 13:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Even the pompadour (fish) gets more results in GB than the haircut... In ictu oculi (talk) 22:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Keep (hairstyle). Pompadour is far more than a hairstyle. The individual has prominence over her hairstyle. werldwayd (talk) 19:17, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Support - I agree with the above. In the last 20-plus years that I have been into fashion history I have never seen Madame de Pomadour described simply as "Pompadour" - at the very least she is "La Pompadour", but more usually Madame de Pompadour. Even in The Girl In The Fireplace she is called Madame. Keep this as "hairstyle" and the disambiguation page as it is. Oh, and to further muddy the waters - there is also a type of silk fabric called "Pompadour taffeta", also after Madame, and a fish dish called Filets de sole à la Pompadour... Mabalu (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misunderstood this, going back and reading it more carefully, I would like to change vote to support. Misunderstood that "Pompadour" was being proposed as a redirect to Madame de Pompadour, which I was opposing. A pompadour is first and foremost the hairstyle. The place MAY be referred to as Pompadour, but that is an informal usage, and that is what a hatnote is for. Every other use of the term "pompadour" is with a qualifier - ie "Madame de", "green pigeon", etc etc. As has been pointed out, Google Books goes by title hits first, so of course the results will be biased towards Madame de Pompadour biographies. Mabalu (talk) 16:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. This is the only one of the uses that's called just "Pompadour", so disambiguation isn't required. A hat note to the disambiguation page will be sufficient.--Cúchullain t/ c 15:57, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Name used for men's cut in 1880s
The last sentence of the introduction, "The name was coined in the 20th century" is apparently incorrect. The name was being used for the style for men's hair by late 1886. Up until that time it was in use to refer to a style of women's dress trimming. I discovered this while doing related research.

Rolla (Mo.) Herald, Dec 30 1886, reprinting from Chicago Journal: "The fashion of clipping the hair short except on top of the head, called the pompadour, is only about ten years old..." Cpacker666 (talk) 03:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Subsequent searching with Google Books has turned up numerous references to hair styled "a la Pompadour" going back as far as 1866. I'll leave it to more intrepid researchers to nail down exactly when the term started to be used. Cpacker666 (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

"Pompadour (hairstyle" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pompadour_(hairstyle&redirect=no Pompadour (hairstyle] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 20:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)