Crimped Hair Makes a Comeback at Stella McCartney

Backstage at Stella McCartney. Photo: Imaxtree

Crimped hair is one of those beauty trends like scrunchies and frosted lips: every time it angles for a comeback you cringe and cross your fingers that it won’t catch on. But alas, crimping made a shockingly sophisticated return to fashion on Stella McCartney’s runway at Paris Fashion Week on Monday. Eugene Souleiman, a longtime influential stylist and the global creative director for Wella Professionals, created kinks in the hair with irons backstage as a way to add “abstract texture” to otherwise simple low ponytails.

Backstage at Stella McCartney. Photo: Imaxtree

“I’m really, really scared of crimping—and there are not a lot of things I’m afraid of,” Eugene Souleiman told Style.com. Known as a risk-taker, he attempted the controversial style by blow-drying the models’ hair smooth and clamping down a crimping iron over select strips of hair—a technique he said he last used on Kate Moss in the ‘90s. Instead of creating the tricky-to-pull-off, brushed-out, voluminous crimped looks of the past, the stylist said he “squashed” down the hair close to the head, pulling it into a tight ponytail for a sporty vibe. “What makes this work is keeping it flat,” Souleiman told Vogue.

The other key differences to this infinitely more modern rendition: creating small, micro crimps (instead of larger uniform kinks) and blending the small textured sections in amidst an otherwise smooth look. Micro crimpers have been used on the runway and the red carpet in recent years to create a little volume at the root, and an angelic-effect with the tiniest textured waves creating soft fuzz, a la Zac Posen’s Fall 2013 show.

Backstage at Zac Posen. Photo: Imaxtree

To get the Stella McCartney look at home, start with sleek straight hair, add a lightweight hair oil (this will help cleanly pull back your strands), and make a very deliberate part slightly off to one side. Next, use an iron like Conair Infiniti Pro Root Boost Micro Crimper ($30) and clamp down on thin strips of hair starting about one inch from the root, creating ridges all the way down the length of your hair. For those without a crimper, you may be able to recreate a similar texture by braiding very small clusters of hair around the crown of your head, sleeping with them in, and taking them out in the morning.