About that hair-style....

[Val289]

Is that picture from the same sitting as the one where they are all looking forward and Anastasia is leaning on Maria?

Yes, Margarita, I believe it is.     I'll bet that Lanie would know for sure.....

[RealAnastasia]

Anastasia didn't wore bangs when she was a toddler or even since she had 5-6 years old. You may notice it in all her photographies from her early years of life.

RealAnastasia.

[Aliss_Kande]

Is that picture from the same sitting as the one where they are all looking forward and Anastasia is leaning on Maria?

Yep, here it is and another from the same sitting
http://www.livadia.org/ana/1901-1906/21.jpg
http://www.livadia.org/ana/1901-1906/23.jpg

[sailor_of_standart]

Here is a pic with Maria and Anastasia mucking around.  You can see a a scare on her forehead. It's not deep but it's there.

[Romanov_fan]

Reply to Real Anastasia. I don't know a lot about Anastasia and bangs, but I agree that she probably did have a scar, and bangs would have been a good way of covering that up. When I first started reading this message board, I thought of the same passage in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book you refer to, and am glad you made people aware of that passage. I am interested in both the romanovs and Laura Ingalls Wilder. The passage comes from one of Laura's later books, I think Little Town on the Prairie. It happened in 1880s, so it wasn't that far from Anastasia's era. Your post was very illuminating. I just wish I remembered more details of the Laura Ingalls wilder Part.
Anybody else's opinion welcome.  

[ConstanceMarie]

Reply to Real Anastasia. I don't know a lot about Anastasia and bangs, but I agree that she probably did have a scar, and bangs would have been a good way of covering that up. When I first started reading this message board, I thought of the same passage in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book you refer to, and am glad you made people aware of that passage. I am interested in both the romanovs and Laura Ingalls Wilder. The passage comes from one of Laura's later books, I think Little Town on the Prairie. It happened in 1880s, so it wasn't that far from Anastasia's era. Your post was very illuminating. I just wish I remembered more details of the Laura Ingalls wilder Part.
Anybody else's opinion welcome.  

Yes! I am a fan of OTMA and Laura Ingalls Wilder too! I know what you are talking about in "Little Town on the Prairie." Laura was going to a sociable for teenagers, and it was a fad in the 1880's for teenage girls to have bangs. Ma did not like bangs because in her time, bangs, or pulling your hair back behind your ears, were hairdos for 'bad' girls! Laura convinced her Ma to let her cut some fringe bangs across her forehead for the party and she let her. It was only for fashion purposes, Laura did not have a scar on her forehead.

[ConstanceMarie]

Another thing about fashion and eras, the bangs were big in the 1880's among young girls. If you look at pictures of Anastasia's mom Alexandra and all her sisters when they were growing up they have them. Laura was their age. By the time Anastasia came along bangs were not in style anymore, it was the long swept back hair or poofed on the head Gibson girl look. All the other sisters of Anastasia had that but not her, which makes me think that the scar and not fashion was the reason she had bangs.

[RealAnastasia]

I'm glad to find at least two Laura Ingalls Wilder fans here!   And yes...In Laura's time bangs were very fashionable, but not in Anastasia's childhood era. She is the only one of OTMA wearing bangs.However, there were not the 1880's bangs style.

RealAnastasia.

[Romanov_fan]

It is nice to know that there are other people who like both the Romanovs and Laura Ingalls Wilder. This shows how two historical subjects can illuminate the other.History is a fascinating thing in that way. Little Town On The Prairie is my favorite Laura book, and I am distantly related to Laura Ingalls Wilder.  

The subject of Anastasia's bangs has always interested me since I read the begining of James Blair Lovell's The lost Princess with the part about Anastasia's bangs. It's been a while since I read that book, but I think it mentions that. It is true that that by Anastasia's time bangs where no longer fashionable, so it makes it even more likely that she had bangs because of a scar. I would love for people to post more on this topic.  

[clockworkgirl21]

But I never see a scar on Anastasia whenshe is bald.  

[Margarita Markovna]

Well all I know is that sometimes scars can fade. I had a scar on my chin for years and one day I looked in a mirror and I couldn't find it. Maybe the same thing happened to Nastya.

[Malenkaya]

Well all I know is that sometimes scars can fade. I had a scar on my chin for years and one day I looked in a mirror and I couldn't find it. Maybe the same thing happened to Nastya.

I agree.  As a little girl I had a scar on my forehead as well.  Oddly enough, my mother saw to it that I wore bangs throughout my childhood.  It was a horrible scar too - I smashed my head against the metal corner of a TV stand - it required many stitches.  I wear my hair pushed off my forehead now, and sometimes I forget completely that a scar ever existed there.  I'm 32 now and the scar was about 25 years ago.  Once in a while if I get too much sun, the area of skin will get a little more pink and you can see the outline of the scar.  Other than that, I often forget about that scar.

I have no problem believing that Anastasia, as a little girl (and a tomboy at that) got a scar on her forehead that her mother decided needed to be hidden by her hair.  By the end of her life, it had probably faded to the point that if you didn't know it was there, you didn't see it.

[Sarastasia]

Aren't bangs still called fringe in England?

Thank you! I started to read this board thinking : "What the HELL are bangs?" I live in England and we have ALWAYS called fringes fringes!!!!

[stacey]

Now I'm wondering about the question of whether or not Anastasia had a widow's peak? I'm curious because I have one, and as a child I also wore bangs (a fringe for our neighbors over the pond!!)   Now that I'm an adult I wear my hair long and my hair is drawn straight back from my forehead and usually tied into a knot at the back--yes, I'm too lazy to do it up properly!! I'm trying to decide if my widow's peak makes it easier to wear bangs or not--my vote is not, because it makes bangs kind of hard to manage, like having a "cowlick".  Still it never stopped me wearing bangs for years! And I do wonder why they're called "bangs" and why it's plural--it really doesn't make much sense!!

[Margarita Markovna]

I don't know what a "widow's peak" is, sorry.

While we're talking about Anastasia's hair, I was wondering if she wears a rat in the 1910 (or any other) formal pictures. You have

Maria in a rat


and

Tatiana in a rat


So is

Anastasia


in that picture wearing a rat behind the bangs?