Late last month, Ariana Grande sent shockwaves around the beauty world with a single selfie. The singer, actor, and beauty brand founder had recently gone back to brunette, officially ending her Wicked era. Now, she took it a step further by chopping off her hair.
“After being blonde for so long, her ends were ready to go,” hairstylist Brandon Pietsch tells Vogue of the transformation. Grande’s golden metamorphasis for the role of Glinda in Wicked took place in 2022, and anybody who has dyed their hair for an extended period time knows the toll repeated chemical damage has on hair. So that’s where Pietsch’s shears came in. “This is all her real hair! Ariana’s hair was quite long, I’d say we took a good six inches off. The concept was a soft bob that was short enough to force her to take a break from the pony, paired with a rich, warm color closer to her natural shade. I’m personally obsessed with how the warm shade brings out the dark amber tones in her eyes.”
In the days since, she’s been (mostly) wearing in a singular style: The flipped-out bob. “Retro looks are coming back for fall in full force,” Pietsch says. He describes Grande’s haircut as a soft blunt bob with internal layers that allow her to style in a a variety of ways. With this chop, he also took her a touch closer to her natural shade of brunette. Perhaps her new signature look is brewing?
Grande isn’t the only celebrity going in on the flipped-out bob. Margot Robbie styled her hair in a similar way—with a return of the side bang!—for the Chanel Cruise show that took place in Australia on November 5th. The look, done by her go-to hairstylist Bryce Scarlett, was a sweet take on her somewhat-new blunt bob (and that cut came hot on the heels of the end of her Wuthering Heights tour, are we starting to see a pattern?). French girl extraordinaire Lea Seydoux and Ayo Edebiri have also taken their hair to new degrees with flipped ends.
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Frazer Harrison
What makes the look modern and not Stepford Wives is all in the prep and maintenance, according to Pietsch. “Bobs can actually be pretty high maintenance,” he says. Grande and company are wearing their flipped-bobs without a ton of volume at the crown (that was Jackie O’s signature style), but instead close to the head and at a precise angle. “For fall and winter, I’m loving softer, less blunt bobs with internal layering so the hair still has movement. Very ’60s, ’70s and ’90s.”
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