Sideburns for women: get in the loop

If it ‘s good enough for the Prada catwalk … Photograph: Alexander Klein/AFP/Getty Images

A fashion trend that can count next-season Balenciaga models and Victorian women among its chief ambassadors has to be worth exploring, right? Say hello to spring’s most nuanced yet entirely uncomplicated and cost-free trend: sideburns for women.

I know. But it’s honestly happening. Back in February when Alexander Wang presented his collection for AW15, all of the models had their hair greased up into a bourgeoise bun with a distinct pair of 5cm sideburns slicked down in front of the ears. Meanwhile at Italian label Marni the models on the spring 2015 catwalk sported greasy side tendrils looped in front of the ears for an FKA twigs-meets-municipal-pool look. Despite it being a deliberate hair manoeuvre, no one stood up and pointed their finger until Leandra Medine AKA Man Repeller, US blogger, embodiment of the zeitgeist and blessed with excellent natural sideburns, suggested it could become the new sideboob. Only with less sexual, and more feminist, overtones.

Anita Bhagwandas, an expert on beauty for darker skin, is surprised by the catwalk trend, but like Medine also sees the positives in this sideburn celebration. “Traditionally women with visible sideburns – particularly those who have dark hair and paler skin like so many women of Indian and Middle Eastern descent have – have had them removed in fear of looking ‘masculine.’ But it’s empowering if it’s one less thing that women feel they should get rid of.”


Hair styled flat to the side of a model’s face on the Balenciaga runway. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

George Northwood, hairdresser to fashionable clients including Alexa Chung (who herself pulls hair in front of her ears to create faux sideburns) and a man who understands the nuance of what 10 strands of artfully placed hair can project, has noticed pretend sideburns getting more traction in the high fashion in the past year or so. He says that it can be hard to pull off in real life, but that a softer version as worn by Ms Chung – more Bardot – is growing in popularity. “If you pull some strand out in front of the ear it has the opposite effect to the catwalk hair in that it softens the face.”

The haute status of the sideburn isn’t new. The look is as much National Portrait Gallery as it is Vogue. Painters such as Sir Thomas Lawrence made a career out of painting aristo women with standout sidies (Countess Grosvenor could give Man Repeller a run for her money). The Victorian women who favoured the so-called Loop hairstyle were all over the faux sideburn too – as was Barbra Streisand.
A Victorian woman with a Loop hairstyle, and classic 'burns.



A Victorian woman with a Loop hairstyle, and classic ‘burns. Photograph: Alamy

Tony Glenville, creative director of the school of media and communication at London College of Fashion, notes that when women’s sideburns in the late 60s and early 70’s were a Thing, they were cut as an integral part of the fringe and used as an aesthetic contrast – first to the Sassoon geometric cut, then later to add balance to a huge pile-up of hippy curls.

But the question is: what does it all mean? At Balenciaga the sideburn was intended to make the bun less uptight – more punk than plié. But could it be that the celebration of the sideburn on women – usually the preserve of testosteroned-up men – is evidence of redefining of what makes a woman’s face attractive? Or are we making a feature of the bits we don’t quite know what to do with in an up-do? Who knows. But haute, pragmatic, historical and possibly feminist? Bring on the sideburns.

Hair care: the salon wagon taking the stigma out of fitting a wig

hen clients of Demitri Jones, a former manager at the Cobella hair and beauty salon in Selfridges, expressed concern at wearing a wig in public for the first time, he would take off his badge and walk around the store with them to convince them that they looked natural.
“We would walk around and I’d say: ‘Look, no one is looking, no one notices, we’re just blending in with everyone around us,’” says Jones. “Katy Perry and Beyoncé wear so many different wigs, it has completely taken away any stigma associated with wearing one, but people are still worried.”
Jones, a stylist with 15 years’ experience specialising in wigs and hair extensions, has worked for celebrity clients and fashion weeks in New York, Paris, London and Milan, and has appeared on ITV’s reality show Models, Misfits and Mayhem, but he says it is his work with people with cancer and others who have hair loss that is the most rewarding.

This month, with his business partner and long-term boyfriend Marc Deacon, he launched Wigz on Wheelz, a mobile salon that specialises in hair loss. Jones travels to people’s homes or to hospitals in London and the home counties. The service caters for people with alopecia, trichotillomania – a condition in which a person feels compelled to pull out their hair – and hair thinning, and those undergoing gender reassignment.
“It is all about confidence,” says Jones. “Whether you are in a salon or a department store, if you are going through cancer treatment you are at your most vulnerable. Your hair falls out in patches. But you are surrounded by people getting blow dries and glamorous cuts.”
At Cobella, Jones worked with similar clients, but felt there was a market for a more private alternative. “We used to get hen parties and tourists coming in to look at wigs, and then you would get people who had just been through chemotherapy.”
Jones learned his trade from his mother, Lei, and her sister, Reena, both of whom were hairdressers, starting at the salon where his mum worked while he was still at school. His Aunt Reena, who died from breast cancer, wore an NHS wig, but, Jones says she hated it –”It was very poor quality.”
“There’s not a lot of help for cancer patients, in terms of where to go for hair loss,” he says, particularly when it comes to deciding whether to shave their heads. “It is a time when they have no control and the last bit of control is shaving.
“It’s not easy for anyone, no matter what age. Whether you’re seven or 70, a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, isn’t it? A young girl I went to see last week was in intensive chemotherapy. She had beautiful, thick, long brown hair. We discussed what was going to happen and whether she might want me to do it or someone in her family to do it. She was very emotional but she said: ‘I want you to do it.’ It’s a horrible thing to have to do, but I try to reassure people. I say: ‘This is not forever, this is just for now.’”