Of all the skills one might have expected to possess a competent grasp of by adulthood, ‘brushing your hair’ seems like a pretty low bar to clear, hovering somewhere between wiping your own botty and tying your shoelaces.
And yet, some of us functioning (honest!) grown-ups have made it this far without the presence of a hairbrush as a faithful steed. We refuse to tame our tresses. We don’t own straightening irons and use hairdryers only to speed up our DIY manis. We are the Great Unbrushed.
Perhaps you are someone who has never had to cut a knot out of your hair. You — and I am guessing here, because I am definitely not you — also have a competent understanding of the difference between cleanser and toner, can wear white and keep it white, and don’t spend your life brushing crumbs off your jumper. Well, good for you. But you might want to consider unravelling a little, because the current moment belongs to us bed-head girls. Getting dragged through a hedge backwards is fashion forwards.
You can thank, or blame, Miuccia Prada for that. Closing out the recently wrapped fashion month in Paris at her Miu Miu show, a gaggle of naughty nerds in oval specs, prim little cardigans and pointed-toe slingbacks sauntered down the catwalk. But that dorkiness was shot through with some detention-ready attitude. Skirts were sheer, trousers bunking off, tights pulled high above the waistbands. But best of all, there was the all-muss, no-fuss hair. Tousled and messy, it felt relatable and looked mildly transgressive (excuse me Miss, but what exactly were you up to in the library? Wink wink).
And she wasn’t the only one. At Coperni, untidy plaits were a perfectly imperfect, tactile counterpart to the robotics unfolding on the runway. At Proenza Schouler, lightly tousled hair appeared air-dried. Not got time even for that? No problem! In the spring/summer collections, Marni, Ester Manas, Dries Van Noten and Ludovic de Saint Sernin were among the designers making the case for wet-look hair. You can see hints of it on the red carpet too. Look, there’s Nicole Kidman foregoing her usual ironed hair for something inching towards untamed. Here’s Rihanna with a topknot, ends poking out just like the bun you might do to wash your face (except, not, because Rihanna). And, seriously, can’t we all identify with Florence Pugh, heading home from the Baftas the morning after with superior not-gone-to-bed hair.
Who wants to look like an Apprentice candidate when they could look like the girl who has been up late, too late, doing something she shouldn’t
Should you wish to express your hautemess credentials anywhere but your barnet, you’re in luck. You might want to dabble with the one-night stand make-up trend doing the rounds on TikTok, encouraging you to sleep in your mascara and lipstick for an I’ve-got-stories-to-tell look. Or maybe you could try a bit of the haphazard, thrown-together, anti-trend trend we saw on the AW23 catwalks; superlong Dr Who scarves with cocktail dresses at Louis Vuitton for instance, or Gucci’s moon boots and mini dresses, or the mum-onthe-run leggings, hoodies and jangling keys at Miu Miu (again!). The attitude was a bit ‘well, everything else was in the laundry’ but — big but — the end result was far more elevated. Which is just as well; you’re going for haute mess not hot mess remember.
Perhaps the patronage of luxury maisons does little to convince you that this is not just slovenly slobbery. Okay, okay. Let me reassure you that to pull it off successfully does require a little bit of sorcery, of (shhh…) effort. It’s not about letting go entirely, more loosening the reigns a little. Think French, not mid-breakdown. So, unbrushed hair should still be cut-and-coloured hair. I learnt this after being literally marched to the hairdressers by a firm-but-fair friend in my 20s. Shout out to Alexe and Neale at Hershesons for their accommodation of my whims, mainly making it look like they don’t exist at all. On another note, well, I am sorry, but you cannot have it all. So you can have birds-nest hair, but not smudged make-up and a chaotic outfit as well. Choose your fighter.
But why though? What is the appeal of looking like you actually just woke up like this? Rejection of the heavily filtered, perfection-at-all-costs narrative that has dominated for so long, for sure. It’s choosing BeReal in an Instagram world. But I suspect, there is a shallower reason too. It looks cool, cooler certainly than the coiffed-and-puffed ‘done’ look. Who wants to look like an Apprentice candidate when they could look like the girl who has been up late, too late, doing something she shouldn’t? The hautemess adoptee has swagger to spare. She’s got big IDGAF energy. Nobody needs to know that you actually got eight hours sleep.
