Last week, I did something I said I would never do again: I wore a strapless Alexander McQueen cocktail dress to an awards dinner in London. The dress was chocolate--brown silk velvet, to the knee, with a tiny corseted waist and exaggerated pockets on the hips. About as modern an evening dress as you can get, it had a deliciously sharp silhouette. Admittedly, it did come with a tiny mink jacketini that I started the evening in. But this was quickly shrugged off and abandoned on the back of my chair during dinner, as a newfound wish to reveal my shoulders came upon me. Frequent Vogue readers will recognize this as a dramatic fashion reversal in the Plum closet: Recently, I have refused to bare more than my wrists when dressing up, and have adhered, over the past year, to dresses for day and night with long sleeves, or bracelet length at the absolute shortest. The cause of this wardrobe revolution? A haircut. You couldn’t have failed to notice the new, swingy, collarbone--grazing, not--long--not--short hair that everyone from -Gwyneth Paltrow to Natalia Vodianova and Kate Moss has adopted. During the writing of this story, hairdresser Harry Josh, of the Serge Normant at John Frieda Salon, barely flinched when Gisele Bündchen called him in a panic, having taken the scissors to her own iconic locks. “She called me and said, ‘Oh, my God! My hair! It’s to my shoulders! It’s such a shock!’” says Josh, who recently took clients Helena Christensen, Ellen Pompeo—-and, two weeks after this conversation, Christy Turlington—-shoulder length himself. “My biggest take on why everyone is doing it is that Hollywood had copied girls like Gisele, who had the original chic, long hair. But they turned it into corkscrew--ringlet, extension/curling--iron hair. It lost that essence of what was chic about it in the first place—-and that was the carefreeness of it. When your news anchor has that hair, it’s no longer happening.” To get back to my haircut, it wasn’t an instant thing. I was the kind of girl who was defined by her long, straight, elbow--length hair. I wasn’t brave enough to lose it all in one go. But two years ago, after I’d had my baby, my long hair had lost its pregnancy gloss. It was so lank it looked like hair curtains. I went to Serge Normant at his salon on Madison Avenue. It wasn’t easy getting in with him, as he works in New York only several days each month. He had cut Sarah Jessica Parker’s hair to a long shoulder length, and I was inspired by how healthy it looked. He spent two hours snipping the length and splicing the ends, and I left with the jauntiest hair I can remember. A few months later, feeling braver, I had a cut with Ashley Javier, who chopped much more off than Serge. This time, it was more extreme, and showed more of my (very long) neck. It looked wonderful with turtlenecks, but in a dress, I felt rather like an ostrich. I let it grow again, until it was back below my shoulders, and Ashley cut it every few months to that chic shoulder length. He cut Jemma Kidd’s hair, Behnaz -Sarafpour’s, and Saudi fashionista Princess Deena’s, too. Instead of “the bob,” he calls it “the Ash,” which he defines thus: “It’s not supposed to be a haircut, it’s supposed to be a hair length.” Getting one’s hair to this perfect, coolly swingy length is not just a case of a quick chop. “The finish should appear blunt but should never be blunt, as blunt looks cheap,” says Josh. “You texturize the ends with maybe a feather razor so the line appears clean, but there is actually a lot of movement in it. Too much of a block, and it looks heavy.” The joy of this length is that “it’s chic because it’s quite androgynous,” adds Redken stylist and editorial whiz Guido Palau. “It’s perfect in the sense that if you put it into a ponytail, it’s still cool. It’s still got an attitude.” Those girls who have lost their long locks positively rave about the benefits. Lauren Santo Domingo cut off her back--grazing blonde hair after someone at her wedding pointed out that all the New York girls had the same long hair. She went to Manhattan salon owner Valery Joseph and asked, “Where do I cut my hair off to get it healthy?” The result, she calls, “this new weird length. I was immediately obsessed. I love it. I wish I had done it before.” Plus, she adds, “you can wear more things: With prints and florals you look polished rather than boho, and with sexy things it looks chic as opposed to cheap. I barely even need a blowout.” Designer Rachel Roy saw Anne Hathaway’s new shorter hair and went to her hairdresser, Ted Gibson, to ask for the same cut. “I can’t imagine having long hair now,” says Roy. “It feels fresh and it feels very right. There was something about hitting my mid--30s and saying, ‘I don’t want to look like I’m in L.A. trying out for a music video.’” For -Gwyneth Paltrow, radically changing her signature look last spring was a major personal—-and commercial—-decision. She explains, “I was shooting for Vogue, and Orlando Pita was blow--drying my long blonde hair, and I was like, ‘I actually can’t take it anymore! Please cut off my hair!’ He was like, ‘What?’ So we called Mario Testino [who was shooting the pictures]. And I texted Aerin Lauder [creative director at Estée Lauder, where Paltrow has a contract] to say, ‘Is it OK?’ She said it was OK. So I cut it off. I felt like a weight was lifted.” Her new hair enabled her to pull off a new style—sleek minidresses, vertiginous avant--garde heels—-and, of course, to launch legions of imitators. “I trimmed it a bit shorter after that, and Orlando said, ‘Everyone’s coming in and asking for this short hair.’” This haircut is addictive. So precise is the length that you find yourself needing to cut it more often. If the hair grows too much and starts resting on the shoulders, suddenly your look goes from fashiony glam to soccer mom. Finding myself in London with slightly too--long hair the day of the aforementioned awards dinner, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find a hairdresser who could give me that edge that you always get with a New York cut. Luckily, Adam Reed, an En-glish hairstylist who had been working in New York, had moved back to the U.K. and recently opened his own salon, Percy & Reed, on Great Portland Street in the West End. I booked an appointment for 10:00 a.m. on the day of the party, and snacked on a bowl of pistachio nuts while Adam snipped away. His finished cut had no layers at all but was slightly graduated at the front to keep it looking soft. He gave me an amazing blow--dry that he said would last at least three days because the Shu Uemura products he was using were water--based, rather than wax--based, so they wouldn’t weigh the hair down. That night, I didn’t need to do a thing to my hair and was ready in minutes. With the strapless McQueen dress, very high Louboutin heels, and a neon-orange clutch, I felt more modern than I had in ages. My hair bounced pleasingly when I walked, which translated to an upbeat mood. I called Lauren Santo Domingo the next morning to discuss the elated disposition this hair produces. She was still thrilled with her hair, although there was one downside. “I made Valery promise he wouldn’t do the same cut for everyone else,” she said, and then let out a wistful long sigh: “But everyone is going to him for shorter hair. So now we all have the same hair. Again.”
The Bold Shoulder
