We might still be in the throes of fashion week, but beauty stops for nobody and we’re forever seeking inspiration for our next hair era. Marc Jacobs‘ AW23 love letter to Vivienne Westwood was a good shout, all peroxide blonde pixie cuts and pops of pink; Marni’s bed hair looked refreshingly achievable; as did the slicked-back balletcore buns at Schiaparelli. Looking to broaden our options though, we asked around and called on some industry insiders — from the owner of a gender-neutral barbershop with locations across the US, to the East London-based Japanese hair stylist beloved by your fave pop girlies — to highlight the trends they love and recommend for the coming season.
Keisuke Watari, London
Caroline Polachek knew exactly who to ask for her dead leaf-inspired halo bleach. Pretty Sick singer Sabrina Fuentes hits him up whenever she’s in town. Even dream couple Devon Ross and Earl Cave are fans. “My business is not a typical hair salon,” Japan export Keisuke Watari tells us — and he’s not wrong. Keisuke’s salon — which opened in 2021 in an inconspicuous East London location – doesn’t have a name, there’s no signage, and yet business is booming. “I’ve created an environment where you can concentrate on creating hairstyles with a greater degree of freedom,” he says. Put simply: when you get your hair cut by Keisuke, you’re collaborating on an art project.
Tell us about a style you love right now.
A cut composed of blunt sides with a few layers, plus some creative colour – either a pattern or a strong contrast between dark colours and high bleach. Rather than committing to a full mullet, shag, wolf cut, jellyfish or geometric bob, I like to mix different textures into one original hairstyle. Why can’t styles can be both blunt and choppy, clean and messy, grunge and gentle?
What inspires this eclectic hybrid?
I think the passion and freedom of young people is similar to what it was in the late 90s and early 2000s. Everybody’s seeking an individual style. Don’t just copy on-trend hair — take a picture for reference but discuss the condition of your hair and your mood with your hairdresser.
Gregg Lennon Jr, Los Angeles
Good news, we’ve tracked down the person responsible for Charli XCX’s pivot to big, blowout hair (see: “Good Ones“) and that person is Gregg Lennon Jr. The Los Angeles-based hair stylist might be relatively new to both town and the music industry — he was deep in the NYC fashion scene for a long time —but he’s already working with Charli as well as plus Rina Sawayama, Grimes, Rebecca Black, Dorian Elektra and Christina Aguilera. Phew. “Musicians get to create these incredible worlds that can be completely free from trends,” Gregg tells us. “We get to play and experiment within those worlds.”
Tell us about a style you love right now.
LOWLIGHTS! I cannot encourage people enough, especially blondes, to embrace the beauty of the lowlight. It makes your blonde bits look blonder, it feeds our nostalgia addiction, and gives so much visual interest to the hair. Kelly Clarkson knew what she was doing! Adding black pieces into blonde hair is fun, but it’s also fun to add to brown or red. Hair extensions are a great, noncommittal way of experimenting with extreme lowlights without risk of permanently changing your colour.
Where do you think the inspiration behind the trend comes from?
For sure the 90s and Y2K influence. Fashion is so cyclical, everything tacky and fabulous is bound to reappear. I think we’ve finally come to a point where having a real sense of humour with your look is not only supported but encouraged. It’s just hair — have fun with it. Change it all the time and if you hate it, shave it.
Benjamin David, co-founder of Fluff, London
French session stylist Benjamin owns Hackney’s Fluff salon. His 15 years in the industry has seen him travel the world to work on shows and shoots for the likes of Gucci, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. The pandemic prompted a vibe shift. “A friend and I decided to launch our own studio that reflected our unique styling aesthetic,” he says. “Fluff is a one-stop shop for all your hair needs in a cosy and chilled space — you get a totally bespoke experience.”
Tell us about a style that you love right now.
Big colour placements. Bold colours like plummy red are having a comeback and bi-tonal colours are so in. Slimmer silhouettes are also back, which is another symptom of the Y2K explosion. Something I’m getting lots of requests for at the moment is the halo colour placement. A year or so ago, the halo would’ve been considered too edgy but now you really see elements of this starting to appear everywhere. I adopted the look in a recent photoshoot with an airbrush colour spray — a really fun way of doing it in a temporary way.
Where do you think the inspiration behind the bold colour and halo trends comes from?
It’s definitely a contemporary twist on Y2K styles — a sort of mash-up of grunge and punk with high fashion. There’s this amazing magazine from 1998 called Kerouac Hair Wars, which charted the unique hairstyles and off-beat colours of Harajuku youth hairstyles. I get so much inspiration from there.
Magda Ryczko & Sam Maynard, founder and barber at Hairrari, NYC & LA
Leading the way when it comes to gender-neutral barbershops is Hairrari, whose founder Magda Ryczko opened the brand’s first NYC shop all the way back in 2011. “The hair space was still very cookie-cutter in regards to gender and what styles were offered to who,” they explain. “We’ve been proudly breaking those rules ever since.” Known for their mullets, shags, creative buzzcuts and androgynous styles, they take an almost anti-fashion approach, instead looking to music for inspiration. Stylist and colourist at Hairrari’s LA outpost, Sam Maynard, seconds this, noting that they’re, “a bit of an outsider in the industry”.
Tell us about a style that you love right now.
Magda: Give me 80s glam rock, 60s mod and 70s everything. I love fun, messy, big hair and a lot of colour.
Sam: I’ve been doing a ton of patterns on buzz cuts — animal prints and flowers and stuff. Lately I’ve been really into using just bleach on natural hair to make the patterns. I just think it’s so punk to rock the raw bleached hair look — very DIY.
Would you say these trends are specific to particular places?
Magda: Every city has its own feel. We have locations in New York City, Portland and Los Angeles. New York has a very street style feel. It’s cool and low-key. L.A. is bold and editorial. Portland is very art school, which we love.
Sam: I guess to some extent it’s very LA, very punk, very queer, to have these wild hairstyles. But I love seeing it in small conservative places. I remember seeing these kids in Ohio a couple of years ago with neon hair and I thought they were so badass. It’s really about self expression and that exists everywhere.
Where do you think the inspiration behind the trend comes from?
Magda: I think a lot of people are drawn to these old school rockstar looks not just aesthetically, but because of attitude. I love the gender-fluidity of a lot of these styles. I love the freedom that creates.
Allie J, New York
“As a child, I was influenced by the stories that hair and fashion would tell on the runway,” Allie J recalls of realising the industry was for her. Today, when the New York-based hairstylist isn’t making over models for magazine covers and YSL shows, she’s working with musicians Aminé and LSDXOXO, and actors including Amandla Stenberg and Gossip Girl’s Jordan Alexander. “My work is an exaggeration of simple styling,” she tells us, “with a real focus on impactful shapes”.
Tell us about a style that you love right now.
Hairstyles that play with structure through height and shape. It’s currently a trend that’s quite specific to red carpet events and editorial – after all, that’s where hairstylists are able to express themselves the most.
Where do you think the inspiration behind the trend comes from?Honestly, because there’s almost nothing new under the sun, the inspiration could be from anywhere. Could be an exaggerated version of 60s styles, different African styles, or even things we’ve seen in nature or architecture.