A Guide to 90s-Boy Hair in Five Parts

After looking at all of those Devon Sawa photos the other day, I started to dream about him. Well, more specifically, I began dreaming about his hair. His 90s-boy center-part haunted and intrigued me, in equal measure. I needed to understand its hold over me, so I studied Devon's part and the parts of a few of his contemporaries. 

Contrary to popular belief, the 90s white dude hair part wasn't actually an invention of the 90s. Many influential figures throughout time were ardent supporters of the style. 

Of course, it was in the 1990s that the hairdo reached its pinnacle. If you had a crush on a Caucasian male actor who was between the ages of 12 and 17 in 1994, the guy's hair was definitely parted. (There's also a pretty good chance that your crush's name was Jonathan.)

Often, the hair on the top/front of the head was long, falling to about eye-level while the hair in back was shorter or shaved, basically creating two layers. But there was no standard when it came to length (except that it shouldn't end below the shoulders) or the severity of the part--as you'll notice in the above pictures. Matthew Lawrence, (star of Brotherly Love and utterer of "he's a she, she's a he, he's a she-she...he's half man, half woman"), for example, was a trailblazer and proved that there was room for interpretation and personal expression. 

Matthew should be awarded a Nobel Prize--at the very least--for how gracefully he made the transition from 80s bowl-cut to 90s parted hair. The day he ran that comb down the center of his head was enlightening for him, I'm sure.

After a failed attempt to rejuvenate the show with the birth of a fourth Seaver child, in 1991, Growing Pains execs decided to add another new character--this time one with a center-part (in contrast to Ben's side-part).

Unlike Mike and Ben Seaver, Luke's hair was unequivocally 90s (and he didn't tuck his shirts into his jeans like a big, 1989, dork a-hole). Though I'm sure Leonardo DiCaprio delivered a fine audition, it was undoubtedly his coif that secured the gig. As magnificent as Leo's center-part was, the show sucked--having reached that lamentable bad-boy-character-becomes-teacher phase--and Growing Pains ended within a year of him joining the cast. I have a feeling, though, if he'd let his bangs/hair flaps fall over his eyes a little more, and made the part a tiny bit more pronounced, they could have strung things out for another two seasons. 

It's simple. If you had the center-part, you were cool. Well, you know, cooler than anyone sitting next to you who didn't have the center-part. Case in point:

Case in point part deux: 

Under normal circumstances, I'd say that Leo is just generally more awesome than Tobey Maguire. But in this instance, Tobey has 90s hair while Leo has this weird, buzzed flattop aka "the clock tower shooter" cut. Tobey wins.

There was the "Black Relaxed Hair" Variation (See Prince; Michael Jackson in the "You Are Not Alone" video), the "Boy Band" Variation (See Nick Carter), the "Creepy" Variation (See James Van Der Beek), but my personal favorite was the "Curly" Variation.

I admire Johnny Galecki's boldness. Most guys with curly hair would look at JTT or Devon Sawa or sit behind Jordan Catalano in class and think, "my hair's never going to be able to do that." But not Johnny.  What's really awesome is that almost 20 years post-Roseanne, he's still sort of doing his hair like this. 

In researching, I came across something wondrous and revealing:

The differences in length give the illusion that each of these guys has a different haircut, but no, they all have the 90s-boy center-part. If ever you doubted the importance of the hairstyle in the history of man, then you need only take a look at this glorious artifact. 






Photo Credits: Brad Renfro, JTT, Will and Rider, Matthew Lawrence, Growing Pains, Tobey and Leo, Johnny Galecki.