You’re probably familiar with the French bob – effortless, chic. Or the lob – its low-maintenance, non-committal cousin. Their round, razor, choppy, curly siblings. Maybe even – if you’re as clinically online as me – the SEO non sequitur of the moment, the ‘Birkin bob’. It’s a media field day when Hailey Bieber or Camila Cabello drop their jaw-skimming chops on IG stories, or when Victoria Beckham resurrects the Posh Spice classic. Bobs, culture loves bobs.
But culture-at-large is also a fickle creature. springs and summers past tend to lean into longer lengths: bouncy and bohemian, or whispering wealth as sleek and ultra-long. Still, 2024 was quite simply the bob’s biggest year yet. Standouts for me being Gigi Hadid’s springtime tousled bob created by Chris McMillian – the trusted celebrity stylist who crafted one of the world’s most well known haircuts, Jennifer Aniston’s ‘Rachel’ – which Gigi’s since made bolder, cut shorter with razored ends for its Milan Fashion Week debut. There was also Isabelle Huppert’s tawny, wavy bob that fell just short of shoulder-length on the Venice Film Festival red carpet.
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As with most aesthetic choices in 2024, the bob discourse has been stretched taut by microtrend after microtrend, the trend cycle building around each week’s bob du jour. The Bubble bob, the Scandi, Baroque, Princess… These cuts can come attached to other media lab-created aesthetics – ‘gemini hair’, ‘cashmere blonde’, ‘cherry cola hair’.
In our real lives, a bob can be a signifier of a pivotal moment. Maybe it’s after a boisterous summer, when the chop can signal a return to structure. For some, the snip to the nape of the neck marks a transformative life moment like a break-up, a new job, or moving countries, with the weight literally and figuratively lifted from your shoulders, the breeze of a new day behind you. We all love a hair transformation – Brad Mondo’s reaction videos will tell you as much, and TikTok’s #hairtransformation tag with over 3.1 million views, dominated by slick transitions to bobs. With this lens on other people’s big hair decisions, the chop feels less of a risk and has more of a sense of solidarity as you move into a new era. ‘New hair, new me’ remains a compelling mission statement.
My own bob-lore begins like many others: a pudding bowl cut for primary school with a fringe I had pruned myself with kitchen scissors. The next time was in my first year of university. I spent what felt like an exorbitant amount of money getting my at-home balayage cut out for a tapered bob with a mini fringe, my nape shaved to meet the severe cut. Since then I’ve stayed loyal. I get F.O.M.C – fear of meeting collarbone – if I ever attempt to grow my hair any longer than the standard bob. I don’t know what my face shape is, though the bob school of anatomy seems to attest that bobs best suit oval and heart-shaped faces, but I don’t care.
I’ve been getting my hair cut for years now by Linus Johansson, based at north London's Laundry LDN, with his work featured in DRY Magazine and Dazed Beauty. We’ve experimented with lengths, layers and side parts. 'The bob we’ve been doing now is late 80s, early 90s – it’s full-bodied, round brush blow-dried with mousse at the roots to give volume. We skip the middle parting to flick over to the side fringe forward for extra height,' he says of my current style. His other clients include new mums looking for a refresh with a bob (and practically, to evade their babies’ harsh grips), as well as clients re-inventing themselves post break-ups or after quitting their jobs. 'I grew up with the Robyn and Victoria Beckham bobs,' says Linus, 'Isabella Blow too. And now I’m thinking of that iconic Jessie J bob!
'A bob can hold quite a few statements,' Linus adds. 'Thinking of Anna Wintour – that sharp, full bob is like a helmet. It’s armour. Then you’ve got this "Birkin bob" – it’s romantic, luxurious, signalling something completely different. I don’t think bobs are seen to be so extreme as they once were.' Femininity is a broader picture. 'I think there isn’t as much cultural value in long hair anymore, because in the past, length had historically been for the male gaze.'
I’m also of the Nora Ephron school of thought, when she wrote in I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman that 'sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death'. While I largely agree with Ephron’s writing on the tenuousness of beauty maintenance, I’m not in a position to assuage it like she did with two blow drys a week. A bob for me reflects a freedom and lightness.
The power of the bob is that it appeals to both classic and more alternative aesthetics. I often look to Pinterest and films for inspiration and tweaks, which is easy, because cinema and history alike’s greatest heroines have committed to the bob. It’s a cut that traverses historical records and screens. Polish hairdresser Antoni Cierplikowski, who developed the style in 1909 in his Paris Salon on the likes of Josephine Baker and Edith Piaf, was said to have been inspired by portraits of Joan of Arc and her cropped hair. It’s been a symbol of the rip-roaring Jazz Age with Liza Minelli, a note on cult cool and youthful insouciance with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, Winona Ryder in Heathers, and Rose McGowan in Doom Generation. Nastassja Kinski's middle-parted, messy bob in Paris, Texas, is one of my all-time favourites and a permanent mood board fixture – it’s an angular shield, a reflection of her unsteady identity, and a symbol of complicated beauty.
In the last few years, I’ve gone through some quite seismic style evolutions. I’ve reconsidered my faith in my own taste and tried to resist algorithmic fashion, and become more mindful about how I shop, trying to stay true to the silhouettes I naturally gravitate towards. My commitment to my bobbed hair is something that I’d like to reflect more of in all aspects of life, rooted in my own identity and comfortability. While celebrities may return to their extensions, fringes and layers will come and go, my bob cut stays strong.
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