Maybe you noticed it on runways at New York Fashion Week. Maybe you glimpsed it on the heads of some “Swans.” Or maybe you saw it at the Grammy Awards, on Miley Cyrus, who paired all five of her outfits with a leonine mane.
Big hair, it seems, is back. Models in the recent Marc Jacobs show were each wreathed in a nimbus of spun-sugar hair, and on the runway at Christian Cowan, they were given artfully back-combed updos. For Mr. Cowan, it was a winking homage to ladies who lunch — a caste that figures prominently in the TV mini-series “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.”
Ms. Cyrus’s cascade of voluminous waves at the Grammys was meant to channel an amalgam of Raquel Welch and Barbarella, said Bob Recine, the hairstylist behind the look. He used visible teasing to give her superhero coif a punky, modern edge, he told People magazine.
Of course, for many, towering manes have never gone away, thanks in part to Dolly Parton — Ms. Cyrus’s godmother — and her puffed-out ringlets and supersize wigs. The style’s latest incarnations seem to blend aristocratic authority with a hint of feline aggression. Big hair, the celebrity hairstylist Guido Palau has said, can signify power. It certainly commands attention. And space.
An Installation of Showstopping Corsets
Today it’s not at all surprising to see corsets on the streets, whether worn under tailored jackets or layered over T-shirts and dresses. They are a key component of so-called coquette-core, a social media-driven aesthetic that mingles flirtatious femininity with the elegance of old-time British aristocracy.
