Figure 1.--Princess Cecile was photographed here with her children about 1917. The older children are boys. The two boys with the fancy hairdos are Hubertus and Frederick. In this photograph they would have been 6 and 8 years of age. Their hair may have been styled especially for the portrait.

The children of the Crown Prince all have short hair styles, even as younger boys. There are some hair styles, however, that are difficult to describe. One of the boys here had a kind of spiked hair style on top hos head. Another boy has the hair on top his head done in a kind of rolled curl--earher like a French choupette fashion. It was, however, kept quite short on the side. Both these boys seem to be school age. Many other German boys this age had their hair cropped quite short. I have seen these styles on boys of this age on many of the other photographs of German royals compiled for HBRC. Interestingly, the spikey hair appears to sometimes appear even when older and younger brothers might have more ordinary styles. We do not know just why these destinctive styles were chosen for these two boy. In this case they are the younger two boys. I have also not seen this style hair worn by the English royals, presumably it was a German fashion. I'm also not sure whose idea it was, but surely it must have been their mother, Princess Ceclia's idea. (Princess Cecilie was from Mecklenburg-Schwerin.) I don't think they normally wore this fancy styles, it appears to have been done especially for the portrait with their mother. I'm also not sure what the boys thought of it. A HBC reader comments that the spiked hair style looked rather like the spikes on German World War I helmets. We have no evidence from written accounts that this was the actual purpose of the style.

Created: June 26, 2001
Last updated: June 6, 2002