Lemondrop

While the short and sleek pixie style might be the haircut du jour this spring, it seems those ladies who require a little something brushing against their shoulders are going in the opposite direction -- big and bigger.

As the New York Times noted, the most recent fall 2010 runway shows were dominated by the voluminous hair trend, while, thanks to Snooki of "Jersey Shore" fame, teenagers across the country have familiarized themselves with the nouveau-retro mini-beehive. And just last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed off a possibly-Bumpit-enchanced coif to her political peers.

"It's all about '80s big hair -- that's what we're seeing," Paul Labrecque, a New York–based hairstylist to the likes of Anne Hathaway and Renee Zellweger, tells Lemondrop. "There's a lot more wave and body, like how Christie Brinkley or Gia would do their hair in the '80s."

So just why do women go big?

"I think, number one, they say it makes them feel thinner when it's higher and fuller," reasons Labrecque. "And anything that elongates makes you feel skinnier and sexier."

Yet, taking a look back through hair history, it seems that big hair wasn't always considered sexy -- or even feminine at all.

"It was masculine to have big hair," explains Skidmore College professor Penny Jolly, who curated the 2004 exhibit, Hair: Untangling a Social History. "In the 18th century it was men wearing wigs. Wigs were a sign of masculinity, a sign of being a gentleman. Different types of wigs implied different statuses.

"For women, hair was supposed to be controlled, women wore hair that was braided and pinned back, and this was for centuries and centuries. It symbolized chastity and control over sexuality."

Of course, Marie Antoinette, with her famous pile of towering powdered locks (sometimes accented with model ships), was one of the main forces who changed all of that -- if only for a brief period of time in the 1770s and 1780s.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was seen as transgression in women," says Jolly, of Antoinette's hairstyle. "Taking on big hair was really taking on the masculine trait. I think it would be seen as improper. Marie Antoinette was vilified for everything she did. And this female hairstyle was satirized left and right. Women were absolutely ridiculed. It was a very short-lived fashion."

Besides the semi-tall top-knot style of the 1830s and the big hats (opposed to big hair) movement of the early 1900s, Jolly says big hair stayed dormant for a long time until the bouffants of the late 1960s and Farrah Fawcett's cascading wings of the 1970s.

Of course, by this time, showing off one's locks had become a feminine hallmark, instead of a masculine one.

"Men didn't turn away from fashion until the 19th century," says Jolly. "It's something dress historians call the Great Masculine Renunciation. Representing their public, democratic selves, they tended to dress alike throughout different classes and have short hair. Women at this point completely took on the burden of showing class and changing fashion."

But perhaps today, with Robert Pattinson's awe-inspiring 'do standing just as gravity-defying as Snooki's pouf, might the pendulum of style influencer be swinging back in favor of the boys?

While we'll have to wait and see, one thing is certain, says Jolly: "Hair equals power." And the bigger it is, the louder the statement.