March 25, 2024 |
Since my first year of university, I’ve messed about with my hair. Like the stereotypical suburbanite I am, I left the leafy green pastures of my cushty Hertfordshire village after the summer of 2018 to venture up North to Leeds, with the noble intention of studying Ancient History in tow. Alongside attending my lectures on Roman democracy, a new agenda made itself known to me pretty quickly – drink beer, get a nose piercing and learn whatever the hell breakbeat was.
Whilst I processed all this new information, I realised to look the part, I would need to make some aesthetic adjustments, meaning that just shy of my second term, I took some scissors and lobbed half my locks off in favour of a shoulder-brushing cut. It was my pièce de résistance. Yeah, I might not have been able to join in on an authentic conversation about techno or how to roll an L-plate, but with my new bob, nobody would ever be able to tell. To the unsuspecting eye, I was an edgy Leeds student. I kept this trim-heavy charade up for the next three years, intermittently painting my hair with lashings of red box dye for good measure.
You can imagine my unmitigated glee then when snip-happy haircuts made themselves known this most recent fashion month. My long-standing habit was now being embraced by the top trendsetters in the industry – me five years ago, with her dreams of working in fashion, would have been bloody chuffed.
Luar kicked it off, sending models down its New York runway with curved micro-bangs that were slicked onto foreheads. Inspired by the retired term ‘metrosexual’, used to reference perfectly groomed city men in the ‘90s and ‘00s, hairstylist Evanie Frausto drew on Elizabethan wigs to create the greased-down looks. In Milan, No.21 embraced its seasonal themes of rebellion and disorder by pairing misshapen silhouettes with messy down-dos complete with eye-blocking side fringes and flyaways galore. Later that week, Sportmax tapped into a similar spirit, this time equipping its models with nape-grazing crops, each sporting its own set of uneven ends.
The fash-pack then flew to Paris and Dries Van Noten gave insight into what can happen when you’re fearful to cut a fringe too short, with models having to peep through a low-hanging mop to map out their route down the catwalk. The show itself was rather aptly entitled “she’s a woman who dares to cut her own fringe!”. One of the last shows of the season from Kiko Kostadinov bookended the trend nicely. Regular collaborator Olivier Schawalder opted to craft cascades of wispy tresses that rained down from the brim of textural hats, eerily reminiscent of what might happen when an untrained pair of hands attempts the risky undertaking of hair thinning.
This being said, having a misguided hack at your hair in the spur of the moment is somewhat of a rite of passage. What were formulaic ‘00s romcoms for if not to teach young women that once they go through a heartwrenching breakup, they must take some kitchen scissors, stand in front of the mirror crying and shear away. A new hairstyle can flag a supposed new stage of life and, sometimes, you want to welcome that stage as soon as possible, even if it means walking around with a lopsided bob until you inevitably trudge into a hairdresser, head hung low, asking them to fix it. Much like chancing an expiry date, it’s something you have to do once or twice to realise for yourself that actually, although it seems like a masterful money-saving hack, it will, more often than not, backfire. On the runway, unusual and chaotic chops are embraced as another welcomed display of talent and creativity, and that’s great. However, the hairstyling from this season has left me with one lasting message I’m more than happy to carry with me – best leave it to the professionals.
