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In the mid-90s, there was a haircut trend that should have come with a Public Service Announcement. Something like, “Most stylists don’t know how to do it, and most girls don’t look good with it.”
Or, at the very least, “Don’t get this cut the same week you start High School.”
Allow me to provide context: For those of you who missed it, “Friends” was a major hit sitcom in the 90s. It was about three guys and three girls living and working in Manhattan. They had inexplicably spacious apartments, and they hung out at a coffee shop. In a sprawled out seating area that they (again, inexplicably) managed to secure every time they were in the coffee shop, they’d discuss their dating escapades, work dilemmas, and other city-living shenanigans.
Now, Jennifer Aniston’s character, Rachel, had a haircut that, for some reason that I don’t think anyone ever really understood, made people go insane. Here it is:
Everyone wanted this haircut. It was basically a new way to wear “layers” – at least, I don’t recall seeing layers before then, except perhaps on Jem and the Holograms. Anyway, the point is that many women wanted this hairstyle, but not all stylists were trained to deliver this look. And, more importantly, we’re not all Jennifer Aniston.
Fortunately for others, I sacrificed and demonstrated that this cut was not for everyone when I gave in to my stylist’s insistence that I try it out. She really wanted to give me this cut, and, with my mom cheering along in the corner, I was outnumbered (by two people – pathetic) and didn’t feel like expending the energy it would require to shut this operation down. There was nothing to do but sit back and wait as my stylist moved around my head, snipping here and there, taking my long locks to a place they should never have gone.
It was one of those haircuts when you start thinking, “It’ll be better once it’s dried and styled.” But deep down you hear another whisper: “It’s never better when it’s dry! ” And, indeed, that little whisper was correct. The Rachel was very much not for me. The angled layers hitting my cheeks and forehead looked out of place – like my hair was stolen from someone with a much smaller face. And my cut had so many layers – Rachel had a few cool sweeping chunks that flipped about her face. I had about 7 or 8 different layers cascading down my head, all around. And the worst were the bangs! They were so tiny that they barely covered the top half of my forehead. Instead of looking like this:
I looked more like this:
No offense to Dudley Moore. It worked for him.
I knew, before I even got my Freshman behind out of that stylist’s chair, that I would have to come up with a way to get through first semester of Freshman year. The good news is that, God bless them, almost all of my High School teachers permitted hats in class. And so my Old Navy baseball hat became my closest companion that year. And whenever I couldn’t wear the hat or got sick of the brim blocking my view, I’d tie on a bandana. (Incidentally, that move, combined with my unfortunate obsession with long overalls, earned me the nickname “farm girl.”) Eventually, after several months that felt as long as years, I was able to clip in pretty barrettes and, one absolutely glorious day, sweep it back into a ponytail without tiny pieces popping out all over.
In other words, I survived, and I look back on it as a time when I learned a valuable lesson: I couldn’t simply follow trends (or let others talk me into following trends). I had to do what I liked. Great takeaway, albeit at a really inconvenient point of my teen years. After that awkward first semester, I stopped looking for inspiration from celebrities and started paying attention to what would look good on me. And the rest of High School was a breeze!
Ok, we all know that’s not true. But I did skillfully manage to avoid bad haircut trends . . . until The Flip. But that’s from a whole different decade, for a whole different blog.