Predicting The Bob Haircut’s New Direction (And Greater Meaning) For 2025
Whether you've tried a bob haircut, added one to your mood board, or admired them from a distance: there's no escaping this cropped 'do. In 2024, the bob established itself as the defining hair trend of the year, with names from Gigi Hadid to Ayo Edebiri proving the breadth of the style. Few of us, no matter our hair texture or personal styles, evaded even considering the chop over the last 12 months – and as 2025 emerges, will the bob find a new bassline?
If we’re to go by what the spring/summer 2025 catwalks are saying, it looks like the bobs of next year will be bigger and better – or, at least, sharper. It will be a quarter of a century past the millennium, but designers and their hair teams have thrown back even further to the first iterations of bobs we saw 100 years ago with the flapper girls of the 1920s. Their liberating short bob hairstyles are sitting front and centre of the inspiration collateral.
Erdem is perhaps where this was most plainly executed. The London-based designer's SS25 collection was defined by roaring twenties drop-waist silhouettes and a decade-appropriate splicing of menswear with womenswear. On the hair front, the bob was the collection’s most consistent pairing, working with the models’ natural hair to offer up a subtle variety of takes.
Some were worn with a deep side part, then pinned behind the ears with ends styled to flick neatly at the nape of the neck, characteristic of that 1920s-era style. Others were more fluid, worn in a centre parting with blunt ends brushing over the shoulders for a feeling of cool-girl laissez faire. Perhaps most in keeping with the Jazz Age aesthetic, a third style of bob came with a full set of bangs, with ends perfectly rounding at the jawline. The interpretation was fluid, but the memo that the bob is back again was loud and clear.
At Milan Fashion Week, Versace flew the bob flag. Gigi Hadid and her peers strutted the catwalk with a centre-parted style that created a true fashion week moment, as beauty editors went wild for the models' new chop. It's an easy, low-maintenance style that feels available and attainable.
Versace's output took inspiration from the late 1990s, and the hair mood followed the era with a similar wave. Lengths were straightened sleek, and bobs came for both her and for him: the male contingent wore a jaw-length style.
The bob haircut broke through across the catwalks, with twists here and there: JW Anderson's were extra short with plenty of wavy texture, while at Roksanda, they were fully loaded with bright shades, and at Sandy Liang, bobs got tousled with lots of bounce appeal.
It's no wonder that the bob is set to be back with such vengeance. Fashion and beauty trends are famously cyclical, as much as political moods and economic timelines. The period we are living in now is vastly different from the 1920s, but that desire for greater liberation, freedom, escapism is back once again, where the contemporary fight for human rights and tough economic crunches proliferate. Cutting in a bob still feels like an act of defiance – not just because of its own vast history, but of the reclaiming of time, of image, and of gaze. A bob in 2025 is more than just a haircut, it's a reclamation that our times – and mindset – will benefit from.
ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
You Might Also Like
