“It's the kind of thing that drives a stylist crazy because you can’t look like that.”
Caroline Mitgang,nude massagenbo sex reddit video a Los Angeles hairdresser, sighs over the phone. “That's the theme. The theme today is going to be: You can't look like that.”
Mitgang is talking about a pseudo-pixie cut actress Michelle Williams rocked for Louis Vuitton in 2013. It was fun, elegant, and seemingly effortless — the kind of cut anyone would want.
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"That's the theme. The theme today is going to be: You can't look like that."
“God, I got so many people. Everyone brought me that reference that year.”
But like “The Rachel” of the late ‘90s, which also exuded relaxation, the Williams-Louis Vuitton look was ludicrously hard to achieve, let alone maintain. Its sculpted sloppiness is the sort of chic only serious money and time can buy.
“It was so striking,” Mitgang recalls. “But it’s all really deceptive. It’s immaculately coiffed with product coming out the ears and a person carefully controlling where every little piece is going.”
Still, the desirability of that unattainable style landed in Mitgang’s chair repeatedly, and she wasn’t the only one to notice. Numerous fashion publications reported on the ad campaign and the hair at the center of it, among them Cosmopolitan, Elle, andVogue.
Glamour lauded the styleas an “inspiration for any woman who’s trying to grow out short hair.” By Mitgang’s account, this is about a lot more than one ad and one adorable cut.
Michelle Williams attends the 2013 Whitney Gala and Studio Party at Skylight at Moynihan Station in New York City. �� LAN (Photo by Lars Niki/Corbis via Getty Images) Credit: Corbis via Getty Images Attending beauty school in the Upper East Side of New York City in 2008 and then relocating to Los Angeles in 2017 — where she met this reporter over some long layers and balayage — Mitgang has seen a lot of celebrity-inspired misconceptions.
Wading through Kelly Osbourne lavenderto Dascha Polanco grayto Billie Eilish emeraldand back again, Mitgang can describe much of the past decade through colors, cuts, and styles.
"If you bring a reference to a stylist and your hair naturally is not the color or texture of the person in the picture, it ain't happening."
If the start of the 2010s was dominated by Drew Barrymore’s dark roots, Emma Watson’s post-Harry Potter chop, and Bruno Mars’ pompadour, then the end of it belongs to Lizzo’s perfect puff, Busy Philip’s care-free pink, and Jonathan Van Ness’s shiny tresses with handlebar mustache— and possibly Joe Keery’s surprise bangsdepending on who you ask.
Mitgang’s primary job may be giving haircuts, but in a society as fame-centric as ours, weathering cultural tides has become a core tenet of customer care. In 2016, Mitgang was even called upon to break down Hillary Clinton’s coifand Donald Trump’s “situation” in political op-eds for Quartz — to, you know, help us decide who would be the president.
Of course, we, the clients, didn’t want every look we noticed this decade. But when we saw something we had to have, we arrived with very specific instructions for people like Mitgang, often to their frustration and our detriment.
“If you bring a reference to a stylist and your hair naturally is not the color or texture of the person in the picture, it ain't happening,” Mitgang warns. “I love references as far as understanding a silhouette that appeals to you and then I can hopefully kind of translate it into something that makes sense, but it has to make sense on you.”
SEE ALSO: The 15 best TV shows of the 2010sIt’s not hard to understand that certain cuts work better on some people than others, and by extension, that some looks only work for celebrities with the resources to manage them.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Still, there’s that gut feeling many of us know all too well. It’s a tingling that radiates from your Google search results straight to your scalp, saying, “Thiswill work for me.”
“This poor boy,” Mitgang recounts of one particularly jarring request. “He was like 18, and had this really, really, really long, super curly, almost jet-black hair that he hadn't cut in years. And he says, ‘I want to cut my hair really short and also I want to dye it blonde and here's a picture of Blake Lively.’”
"Whether you have it, don’t have it, whatever condition it is in. It defines how the world sees you."
Mitgang pulled out her scissors and dye, and much to her surprise, the client was thrilled. Of course, Mitgang was ready. She’d been seeing the Blake Lively thing ever since Gossip Girl premiered in 2007.
According to Mitgang, clients regularly come in with visions of celebrities, often entertainers, they would like to emulate in one way or another and decide to go for it, consequences be damned. For many of us, identity and hair are inextricably linked, a canvas on which we cast dreams and imagine better versions of ourselves.
“Hair is such a defining feature of people’s lives — whether you have it, don’t have it, whatever condition it is in. It defines how the world sees you, it can define how you feel about yourself, and how you carry yourself.”
It’s a surprisingly private thing, conjuring who we might want to be.
I spoke with countless people while researching the topic of hair inspo — among them, an old colleague who deliberately got the “news anchor bob” to appear more professional, a drinking buddy who calls his formerly balding-now-shaved head the “Jason Statham,” and a close friend who to this day credits Viola Davis’s performancein How To Get Away with Murder for helping her embrace her natural texture.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable All of these people, in one way or another, asked not to be named.
“It’s embarrassing to compare yourself to a famous person,” one of them said, underscoring the weird paradox of seeking celebrity hair. “I don’t want anyone to think thatIthink I look likethat.”
My colleagues at Mashable, professionally forthright, offered further insight. Asking a few of them to Slack me a sentence about celebrity haircuts they had tried, I received paragraphs describing the day and the feeling that accompanied a half dozen transformations.
"Doctor Who is my favorite show and for the first time ever I resembled the titular character, so I figured I might as well go all in."
“Like everyone else in the mid-2010s, I got the Alexa Chung long bob,” tech reporter Rachel Kraus remembers. “Alas, hair that looks effortless never is, so my shaggy, messy, cool girl haircut more often looked like a flip-tastic mom-cut.”
“I didn’t cut my hair because it was already the correct length, but I did have it bleached to coincide with the introduction of the Thirteenth Doctor [Jodie Whittaker]last year,” says animator Alisa Stern. “Doctor Whois my favorite show and for the first time ever I resembled the titular character, so I figured I might as well go all in.”
Culture writer Nicole Gallucci’s main hair inspiration comes from Amanda Bynes moviesof the late-aughts. “Amanda is the reason for my middle part, and probably the reason I’ve had angles in my hair for nearly two decades... I’ve only strayed from my signature Amanda once, to show the hairdresser a picture of a villainous Bachelorettecontestant. It worked out great, but I’m back to Amanda.”
SEE ALSO: Which entertainer had the best 2010s?I asked Mitgang about theBachelorettevillain thing, and it turns out she gets that a lot. Reality or fiction, the folks we aspire to look like don’t always have the personalities we admire. According to Mitgang, this distinction came up often when the Zooey Deschanel bang crazehit following 500 Days of Summer.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable “For whatever reason, people were frequently compelled to give a disclaimer about not actually loving her,” Mitgang notes. “They’d say, ‘Oh, I think she's annoying,’ or ‘I don't like New Girl,’ or whatever. There was this strange aversion to herimage, but an appeal about her appearanceand her hair in particular.”
"Donning the hair of Daenerys allowed me to fully unleash my inner queen."
Mitgang says she’s had similar conversations about Anne Hathaway, another actress historically targeted by misogyny hiding as concern trolling. But for as many hairstyles we loved despite the public figures who made them famous, there were just as many we wanted because of their celebrity owners.
Jess Joho, Mashable staff writer and self-proclaimed “Khaleesi of Hell,” started her gradual transformation into the platinum-haired Mother of Dragonsfollowing the Season 3 finale of Game of Thrones.
“Donning the hair of Daenerys allowed me to fully unleash my inner queen,” she recalls. “I’d walk out of the salon with my head held higher and with that ‘Don’t fuck with me or I’ll burn you alive’ vibe. So much so that, despite not looking anything like Emilia Clarke, people would call me Khaleesi while passing me on the street.”
It was an empowering experience for Joho — right up until her colorist told her they needed to stop with the bleach or risk permanent damage to her hair. To be fair, Clarke’s Khaleesi was always wearing a wig.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Mitgang concurs: Daenerys was a big inspiration this decade, and Sophie Turner’s red-headed Sansamade a similar splash. Fictional characters account for plenty of the references photos Mitgang got over the past ten years, be it Natalie Dormer’s undercutin the Hunger Games, Vanessa Kirby’s Princess Margaret finger wavesfor The Crown, or Timothée Chalamet’s ‘80s vibein pretty much anything.
SEE ALSO: Things we loved this decade that everyone else...didn'tMitgang says people even used to bring in photos of the Peaky Blinders guys, before the high and tight became the signature style of the alt-right. Now, she notes, “I don’t do that one anymore.”
"They work normal jobs, but they feel at liberty to do it, which I think is lovely."
Notably, neither the Kardashians nor the U.K. Royals, the two most talked about families on the planet, have made it big with reference photos. Mitgang’s take: the Kardashians wear too many wigs, and the Royals’ hair is stunning but “pretty boring.”
From Taylor Swiftto Tracee Ellis Rossto the never-ending trend of The CW waves(aka “influencer hair,”) Mitgang and I mulled over the hair of the last decade for a little under 90 minutes. Finally, I asked her what we can take away from it all. Her answer was two-fold.
On the one hand, the hair of the 2010s gave us the courage to do whatever and be whomever. Our idols took big swings with their looks, and inspired us to do the same.
“Whenever there's a look that has previously been considered counterculture or subversive, and then a very high-profile person shows up with that kind of thing, it suddenly gives everyone permission to do it,“ Mitgang observes.
“I constantly have [clients] coming in who want just a streak of color in their hair or something like that. They work normal jobs, but they feel at liberty to do it, which I think is lovely.”
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable On the other hand, Mitgang says she’s seeing more and more people, celebrities included, bailing on styles with extensive upkeep.
“We're taking it easy, just letting our hair do what it wants to do,” she says. “We've all run out of energy. We're tapped out, our resources are fully depleted. We've marched, we've taken online surveys, we're watching Rachel Maddow, and need to take a five-minute break that isn’t curling our hair in the morning.”
"We want to be more powerful, and on our own terms. Not on terms that have been these long standing, externally imposed rules."
For this reason, Mitgang says the haircut of today is the shag. It’s an easy look that hearkens back to revolutions of decades past, edgy yet effervescent. She has it, and as of last month, I have a version of it too.
So, what will the 2020s look like in the world of hair?
“The way I do my job is so personal,” she says. “We want to be more powerful, and on our own terms. Not on terms that have been these long standing, externally imposed rules. Where did those come from? Why are we still doing that? I think that a lot of us are less and less willing to conform to that power structure.”
In other words, you can rock a Katy Perry greenor a Janelle Monáe twist. You can bring a reference photo or leave it at home. You can focus on ease or the appearance of ease. As long as you’re being authentic to you and what makes you happy, then you can’t go wrong. Maybe you can’t look “like that,” but you can look like you, in whatever form you would like to take.
When I ask Mitgang if that sounds right, she laughs and says, “100 percent.” But for now, she has to go. She’s got a stack of reference photos, hair to cut, and lives to change.
Topics Celebrities Self-Care