Watch this: the space-age hair fashions of 1962

“Some women look into shop windows and get completely carried away.” When a vintage video starts like that, you know you’re in for 134 seconds of fun. In this 1962 short, British Pathé takes a trip to a futuristic hair salon in the sleepy market town of Wokingham, Berkshire, where a discerning lady of the past has her hair treated with atomic shampoo, electric shocks, and some sort of curling tong / sparkler hybrid. After submitting her locks to the coiffure equivalent of water-boarding, our heroine then receives the apparently-standard “planets in orbit” finish

The salon was a dream realized by its proprietor, Alec Poutney, a man not afraid to run with the “I’m wearing a cape while smoking a cigar” look. It’s difficult to watch Space Age Hair Fashions without hoping for, or perhaps dreaming of, a return to the optimistic futurism of the sixties.