The wet hair theory of fashion

So, wet hair is the new fauxhawk/pixie cut/white-girls-getting-weaves, or something.

I’m not picking on Bronwyn Williams, specifically;  Stuff just happens to be my go-to for “mildly amusing cheese-journalism”, especially in the workplace.

But in this post, the inherent problem of “*F*ashion” is perfectly illustrated:  the instinctive “but … you’re deliberately going out looking like your hair is wet (and have spent a great deal of time and product to achieve a done-nothing effect)!  Is that, like, okay?” clashes with the fact that if Heidi Klum does it on the red carpet and fashion designers all over the world are sending models out on the runway looking that way, it must be fashion.

Personally? *saddles high horse* I think if that is a look that aesthetically pleases you, you rock that look.

Like most things, your preferences are unfortunately already biased and affected by the environment you’ve grown up in (so good white middle-class girls like Bronwyn Williams and I instinctively read the wet-hair look as “untidy” or “uncaring”, for example).  But how much or how little you care about those biases is really up to you – so whether you just reject the wet-hair look out of hand because it doesn’t grab you that much anyway, or want to give it a go to see how it works on you, or immediately embrace it as your One True Hairstyle for life, that is totally your call.

It’s just hair.  It’s not hurting anyone.  And for “hair” in that sentence back there?  Substitute leggings.  Or miniskirts.  Or heels, or flats, or ultra-femme makeup or no-makeup makeup or literally-no-makeup.

I am a little interested in what trends designers are using or discarding.  I certainly rejoice when things which fit my personal style are hitting the runway, because it usually means it’ll be easier for me to find those kinds of items in the shops I can afford to patronise.  But I think it’s also good to let go of the idea that something being “on-trend” or “totally in this season” has any real meaning in of itself.  It can’t be quantified, for a start.  And we all know it’s going to change in a matter of months, and what becomes “fashion” does so largely by luck (one designer has the idea, another designer likes it, a magazine editor says THIS SHALL BE “IN” and sticks it on the cover and there you have it).

And at the end of the day, wet-look hairstyles are now “fashion”, the concerns of Stuff’s fashion blogger notwithstanding.  Because a lot of people who are marked as Fashion Icons are doing it (there’s probably some kind of points system).  Whether we think it looks tidy or not.

(Also, from a fatty perspective?  By default, we basically cannot look tidy or fashionable no matter what we do, so do what thou wilt, sistren!)

(Also also, pic from this Daily Fail story, which hilariously captions another picture as “Adele as she usually looks”.  No, Daily Fail, Adele as she looks for the purposes of media coverage.  Pretty sure that pic above is a lot closer to Real Everyday Adele.)

Haircut update!

Soooooo, the Great Haircut was on the weekend.  That’s my old-and-busted hair above.  Begone!

The change didn’t turn out to be that dramatic in the end … or so I told myself until I had to wash my hair in the shower and my hands were grabbing nothing but air!

In the most basic terms: my hair was lightened and shortened and got some more layers.

Aesthetically, it’s gone from “long” to what my brain refuses to call “long” but concedes may be mid-long.  Those readers with actual short hair may laugh at me as they choose!  But it’s a definite change from my old style, and, I was assured many times, a definite “spring” look.

Assuming spring ever arrives in this godforsaken one-day-drizzle-and-fog, next-day-humid-like-whoa city.

My salon of choice is the ever-hip Get Funkd at the top of Lambton Quay, and that was reconfirmed when one of the new staff gave me literally the best scalp massage of my life.  I’m getting relaxed just thinking about it.  And my stylist is the lovely Katrina, in whose debt I am eternally for finally convincing me that a short-haired stylist can totally appreciate and do magic with longer hair.

Katrina asked to not be photographed, but you can witness her amazing handiwork nevertheless!

At various stages in the process I looked like a Giger painting, a (stylish) Dr Who villain, and … a startled lemur, apparently.  Where’d it all go, I beseech the mirror.

But I had faith, especially in the power of ponytails to get me through the regrowth if it somehow did all go horribly wrong.

By the time it was blow-waved out into some nice volume with a bit of curl, I was no longer anxious (and after the aforementioned scalp massage, nothing could truly worry me), and after the straightening and final layering I was well happy.

I’m just going to dwell on these pics for a while, because Katrina, sage hairdresser of the cosmos that she is, did warn me (and I’d already suspected it):  taking several inches off the bottom of my hair was probably going to result in a bit of bounce-back.

It’d eventually result in a lot more volume and probably awesome curl, but at first … bounce-back.

The hated word frizz may have been mentioned.

So I treasured this lovely, sleek hair for as long as I could, until the signs of the end times (ends curling up, sleekness turning to greaseness) were too strong to ignore.

Armed with new product (Joico, on special, plus a deep treatment and a Christmas gift of sample-size not-hairspray-but-it-holds-your-style-in-place Wella spray) I sallied forth into the shower.  I experienced a momentary disorientation at the lack of weight, the lack of length.  I pampered the crap out of it.  I waved my fist at the gods (this often happens when I’m in the shower) and declared I would take whatever ridiculousness they would throw at me.

Clearly they heard, and trembled, because to be honest … I so totally rocked the consequent frizzy 80s hugeness.

That’s my “Come at me, bro” face, or as close as I get to one while taking stealth-photos in the work loo.  One coworker assumed I’d deliberately curled it, and described it as a Charlie’s Angels look.  It may settle down, it may capitalise on the humid awfulness of our current weather and grow even larger until we have to keep extending the barn to house it, who knows?  I love it.

Wednesday Wanty: hair accessories of many colours!

So due to other life events, the Great Haircutting has been moved forward to this Saturday.

Squee/ohmygod/nerves/excite etc. etc.

Given my utter hair-laziness of the past years and how my hair has seriously behaved itself since I started treating it right, I just don’t have many hair accessories, beyond a few dozen random hairties which constantly turn up in my wallet, random bathroom drawers, the bedside table, etc. etc.

These are basically necessary because my hair routine consists of washing it in the shower in the evening, a loose combing, and back in two ponytails to basically dry overnight.  Usually by mid-morning it’s dry and falling into some nice natural curls and that’s about it.

HOWEVER.  The days of shorter, curlier hair are approaching, and I think that necessitates a change to the hair routine … and hair accessories!

Because really, this could all go horribly wrong and if I do have to spend at least the first week or so pinning everything down so it can’t move I am most certainly going to look adorable doing it!

Rita Sue is a store I’ve had my eye on for aaaaaaages.  Unfortunately, their clothes are out of my size range by about 2-3 inches (and that’s assuming I could ever find anything in stock in a 3XL).

Fortunately, though with a slight sigh at the cliche, their accessories are awesome.  All the polka dots and nautical theme and roses and leopard print a girl could want, in hair clips, handbags, sunglasses, and freaking parasols.

If I must be the fat girl looking at accessories while everyone else tries on clothes, Rita Sue is going to be the shop I do it in.

ASOS is another store I’ve had my eye on (the problem with online shops, I think, is that unlike my local City Chic there’s no fellow-fat-woman behind the counter going “I love this dress, you should buy it ’cause it looks amazing on you”) and free shipping is nothing to be sneezed at, especially with how well the NZD’s doing against the pound.

One thing I appreciate about ASOS is how they cover any number of different styles and eras of fashion, so it’s hardly like you’re stuck thinking “Well great, it’s a 20s/flapper spring season, that’s my jonesing for tailored-hourglass-60s personal screwed.”

(There’s still a problem where the Curve line hardly matches up number-wise to ASOS’ straight size offerings … if only I could find that damn post I read recently which crunched the exact numbers on that!  But what they’ve got is still varied, has some nice versatile pieces and pearl-clutching bright colours, and also free international shipping, yo.)

So whether it’s adorable pseudoturbans (I seriously think I could develop a bit of a 20s-twee turban fetish with the new hair …) or satisfying your inner Minnie Mouse … ASOS has it.

I am so.  There.

When my damn shopping budget allows.

Must be haircut day

… because, until such time as I save my pennies for a GHD, the only time I get properly-straight hair is when I’ve had a haircut!

My hair’s been about this long for years, now, albeit not in the best condition.  All that has changed in the past year thanks to a payrise and finding a damn fine hairdresser, Katrina at GetFunkd on Lambton Quay. /shameless plug

But it’s not to last, gentlefolk.  I’ve exorcized the bad hair demons of my youth, and, in line with embracing the notion that we only have one life and we’re all made of meat and going to die some day so live it up now, sweetheart, I am going to take the plunge.

The plunge into barely-qualifying-as-short short hair.

I was also emboldened to do it now thanks to this post at Shakesville, wherein Melissa dares, dares I say, to be a fat woman with a pixie cut.

Pixie cuts are not in my own future, but I’m really happy to be able to say that that’s just because pixie cuts don’t fit with my own self-image, not because of any ZOMG ROUND FACE!!! rubbish (and this is a significant step, people).  But the point is relevant whether it’s a buzzcut or a mohawk; the fact is, fat women aren’t meant to have short/outlandish/stylish/loud/bright/noticeable hair.  The same way we’re not meant to wear outlandish/stylish/loud/bright clothing, because then people might notice our existence.  (Of course, we’re also expected to always look completely neat and well-put-together because otherwise we’re just proving to the world what lazy, uncaring slobs we are.)

Anyways, short it shall go, in a noticeably-above-the-shoulder way, with some chunky layers throughout.  The hope /expectation of lovely-hairdresser-Katrina and I is that once we lop a good amount off the bottom, the rest will bounce up into its natural, cruelly-suppressed curl and do awesome things.

And if it doesn’t work I’ll resort to cute hairclips and actually blowdrying the damn thing in the mornings until it grows out.  Because, and I only say this because it was actually a bit of a revelation when I really accepted this (vs snarking it at Next Top Model contestants during Makeover Week), it does grow back.

I’ll also be taking the brave step of letting a professional dye my hair, which is almost a complete novelty; beyond a set of highlights at about age 17 when an aunt tried to encourage me to start caring about my hair (she ultimately failed, but that’s a whole other crap-body-image-adolescence story) I’ve never had my hair “properly” dyed.  Much less – whisper it in case my mother hears – bleached.

I instinctively hasten to reassure you it isn’t going to be platinum, or bright pink (not that there’s anything wrong with dying your hair bright pink, or red, or purple if the mood takes you, like sleepydumpling) – so now I’m secondguessing why I’m doing any reassuring at all!

Point is, there is Change in the air.  And I’m almost a little nervous about it!  So farewell, lovely artificially-straightened hair; we shall probably meet again in a year or two.

For more awesome fat hair, I highly recommend the Fuck Yeah Fat Haircuts Tumblr.