I f you’ve spent the past 10 years trying – and failing – to do those loose, carefree, beachy waves, then you can finally put down your tongs, tend to your burns and give it all up as a bad job. Hair is changing. And, it seems, expanding outwards.
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Big hair is back on the catwalk, with models wearing backcombed bouffants befitting the Oil Baron’s Ball. But, says revered hairstylist Sam McKnight, who took inspiration from Princess Michael of Kent and 1980s Sloane Rangers for the hair at Vivienne Westwood SS25, and backcombed big, pouffy supermodel blowdries at 16Arlington, the new big hair is nothing like the helmet hair of 80s fashion. The new “Dynasty hair” is strong, but much softer-looking.
And thanks to an explosion in DIY hair tutorials online, it’s something that can be achieved fairly quickly at home. “It’s not about a proper, painstaking blow-dry with loads of sections and a round brush,” McKnight told me post-fashion week. His key to modern big hair is in blasting it upwards with the dryer to lift at the roots (having sprayed them first with Hair By Sam McKnight Cool Girl Superlift Volumising Spray , £26), then either doing some very cursory tonging of large sections, or throwing in four to six big rollers (heated are best, Velcro are fine.
My favourites are by Babyliss , £60, and Kitsch , £15 respectively), or skippi.