Rebellious streak: stars embrace two-tone hair in nostalgic throwback
Forget sun-kissed highlights, the natural look and paying a lot of money to look as though you haven’t been to the hairdresser. The new look, say trendsetters, is dyeing your hair two different colours and wearing the so-called rebellious streak with pride.
Think Geri Halliwell in the 1990s, Christina Aguilera in the early 2000s and now, with rather more fashion cred, pop stars Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish. “This trend is totally coming back,” says the celebrity hairdresser Charlie Le Mindu. “I’m seeing it a lot. I do Alice (Glass, former lead singer) from Crystal Castles’ hair and she has this style. It’s pop, but in a grunge punk way.”
Luke Hersheson, creative director of Hersheson salons, agrees that 1990s strands are very current. “It wasn’t a cool style the first time around, but people like Dua Lipa are doing it in a rockier kind of way. There’s a whole generation of kids who hadn’t seen it before and find it interesting.”
Mark Creed, former president of the Fellowship for British Hairdressing and an Oxford colourist, says that although the trend stems from students and young people, older clients are embracing the style. The look has been bubbling away on Instagram, with pop stars such as Rina Sawayama and fashion designer Mimi Wade providing hair inspiration for their thousands offollowers.
“It’s getting really popular,” says Lidia Patrizia, a colourist at DKUK hair salon in south London. “We used to get the odd request and now we’re doing a few people a week.”
The style has a nostalgic feel which appeals to those who may have missed out on the chance to mimic their favourite stars the first time round. “It’s a hairstyle I always wanted, but I was too little when it first came around,” says 29-year-old Anne Marie Mead, who recently had orange-coloured strips put at the front of her head. “It’s what all the pop stars had when I was too young to dye my hair and now just felt like a good time do it.”
Mead says reactions have been positive, broadly. “One woman told me it looks trashy, but I like that about it,” she says.
Although the style can be achieved at home by bleaching a triangular section at the front, experts advise against it. “You’d have to be really neat,” says Patrizia. For the modern version, Hersheson says, you need to fully embrace the look and avoid any Spice Girl references. His tip? Dye the whole top section a contrasting colour. “You need to really commit to the look, rather than doing just a couple of pieces. This is flattering and it totally works,” he says.Above all, he says make sure you have the confidence to pull it off. “It’s a way to look young and quirky, but you need attitude. “The risk is that if you do it and your character isn’t that of a cool art student then it just starts to look like a bad colour,” he says.
Le Mindu agrees. “Personally, I love it,” he says. “But you need a whole lot of attitude to wear it.”
