This summer, Clairo had a moment of weakness. “I kind of don’t want bangs anymore,” the singer posted on TikTok. She punctuated her statement with a broken heart emoji. The next day, she returned with an update: “I still have bangs.”
We’ve all been there. Only in my case, I actually went through with my intrusive thoughts and broke up with my bangs. For a while, I thought I was thriving with my forehead exposed to the world. But when I finally made an appointment to snip my bangs back into place late last month, I realized I’d been lying to myself. Life’s just easier when you know what you want and who you are. And like Clairo, I’m a Bangs Girl.
Now that fall — the official season of impulsive hair decisions — is approaching, I’ve been thinking about what it means to return to a signature look. Most beauty advice encourages some kind of reinvention: dye it, chop it, shave it off, start fresh. But bangs are different. That’s partly because bangs are so much work. They require bi-weekly trims, constant styling, and an iron will against humidity, wind, and rain. They’re overstimulating. They’re not the kind of haircut you just do, despite the fact that they’re associated with traumatic, sudden breakups (see: the posters promoting Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” this summer featuring the pop star in a wig with blunt bangs with text reading, “Going through a breakup? Get bangs!”). They’re one of the greatest commitments you can ever make. I’d argue they’re an even greater commitment than marriage, because at least with marriage, you can coast a little. This is not the case with bangs. Go a week too long without cutting them, and you look like SIA. You can’t “take a break” unless you’re prepared to live through a minimum of six months of awkward grow-out. Your sanity and patience will be tested more during this time than in one session of couples therapy. But I digress.
Bangs are for the most loyal, passionate girls. The real hair lovers. And for me, they’ve become proof that I don’t need to reinvent myself constantly to evolve. But to understand the psychology of Bangs Girls, it’s important to take a look at how we got here.
It’s hard to pin down exactly when bangs first appeared, but historians trace them as far back as 3,000 BCE. But bangs really crystallized as a fashion statement in the 1920s, thanks to celebrities like Louise Brooks and Josephine Baker, whose fringes came to symbolize the modern, risk-taking woman. Since then, bangs have resurfaced every decade, each time carrying a different cultural meaning. In the 1950s, baby bangs were shorthand for ultra-feminine, coquettish charm — think Bettie Page and Audrey Hepburn. By the late 1960s and ’70s, they had grown longer, looser, and sexier: Jane Birkin’s French-girl fringe suggested effortlessness while Farrah Fawcett’s iconic feathered curtain bangs embodied a kind of girl-next-door glamour. The ’90s gave us an edgier take on the look, with celebrities like Winona Ryder and Halle Berry embracing the piecey fringe and pixie cut combo. The 2000s and 2010s democratized bangs even further with the side bang, embraced by both men and women and everyone from MySpace scene queens to the entire cast of The Hills.
But with each decade’s take on bangs came a fresh set of associations, some less flattering than others. In a 2019 article for the Huffington Post called “The Complicated Gender Politics of Bangs,” Sofia Barrett-Ibarria writes, “Bangs became the cornerstone of a specific aesthetic for a specific type of woman who was easy to hate. She either tried too hard to be cute, or was so impossibly attractive that she made a hairstyle for kids look cool.”
Barrett-Ibarria thought the hairstyle’s divisiveness might have something to do with the fall of the manic pixie dream girl in pop culture or the rise of TERF bangs — a term likely coined on Tumblr to describe the extra short, blunt-cut, often chunky or piecey bangs that have become associated with feminists who believe trans women aren’t “real” women.
Of course, having micro bangs doesn’t make you a TERF, and not all TERFs have micro bangs, but it’s fascinating that a haircut that has existed across almost all cultures and time periods can be read in so many ways. “Bangs are divisive because they do not work for everybody, but for those that they do work for, they can be amazing and give a whole new sense of identity,” says Jason Zeren, dry cutting specialist and stylist at Spoke & Weal Bond (he’s also a triple Virgo and responsible for my own bangs, which means I trust him more than most people). But when they’re not causing chaos, “…fringe can add structure, a veil of mystery, a fan of flirtation, or a quirky curl that makes casting agents think, ‘they’ve got something and I like it!’”
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However, Zeren warns that before anyone commits to their “new sense of identity,” they should ask themselves some important questions. “The main things to consider are: how easily does your hair fall into place? Are you low or high maintenance when it comes to styling your hair? Do you want to make frequent trips to the salon for maintenance? If you can answer those questions and feel like you are ready for your new persona, the final question is, Who do you want to be? Because people will perceive you differently.”
What I realized, though, was that bangs didn’t give me a new persona. They highlighted exactly who I’ve been the entire time; I just didn’t have a way to express it before. This was partially because I was signed to a modeling agency, so everything I did to my body had to be approved by an agent. But I think it was mostly because, for a while, I was afraid to try anything new with my hair. It took some time (and several Google Image searches of Monica Vitti and Jane Birkin) for me to finally take the plunge, but when I did, I felt confident and sexy. People perceived me differently, but that was only because I was finally feeling like my authentic self.
At the end of the day, bangs aren’t always an impulsive choice or a political statement. Ultimately, I get to decide what they mean on my own head. I’m a Bangs Girl because that’s how I like to see myself, and that’s reason enough to keep on coming back. And for that, I get you, Clairo. I really do.
