1. Platinum Hair
Post-breakup makeover or grungy beauty statement, platinum dye jobs were the paparazzi darling’s ticket to an unfailingly photogenic look—no matter where aesthetics fell on the beauty spectrum. Who knew there was a beauty trend that everyone from Taylor Swift to Kristen Stewart and Rooney Mara could agree on?
2. The Shoulder-Length Chop
It’s only natural that bobs and lobs would give way to the shoulder-grazing chop—but 2016 saw its fair share of opulent manes cropped to hit right above the collarbone. After Victoria Beckham, Cara Delevingne, and Elle Fanning—to name just a few street style beauties—chopped off a year’s worth of hair, what was once considered the ultimate sensible length shot to unprecedented levels of cool-girl chic.
3. Buzz Cuts
Shorn styles became a striking antidote to the ubiquitous bombshell manes this year, with fresh faces like Halsey and Stranger Things’s Millie Bobby Brown bringing to the table a pure, doe-eyed beauty that we haven’t seen since a “Nothing Compares 2 U”-era Sinéad O’Connor.
4. Waist-Grazing Braids
Impossibly long, swingy braids have long been part of the American beautyscape, but Zoë Kravitz nudged them back into fashion’s forefront, paying homage to her mother Lisa Bonet’s iconic style with a fresh, bleach-blonde update.
5. Shower-Fresh Hair
Of all the old-wives tales cramping our style, never leaving the house with wet strands was the one to ignore in 2016. Hair was slicked down to perfect symmetry; left to dry into easy, wind-styled waves—and worn in shower-fresh surfer waves à la Kim Kardashian West.
6. Schoolgirl Braids
After the half-up topknot dominated 2015, the rise of slick, neatly plaited twin braids took over as the international sign of the street style star—best worn with gleaming skin and a strategic flash of skin.
7. Cher Hair
Extensions have come a long way since the painfully faux-haired aughts, with everyone from Jennifer Lawrence to Chrissy Teigen going to new—and newly convincing—lengths on a whim. No wonder Cher hair celebrated a renaissance, most notably in the form of Jourdan Dunn’s flat-ironed lengths.
8. Big Bangs
Far beyond a fad, French-girl fever will come to define this decade. Eyelash-skimming fringes inspired by Parisiennes from Françoise Hardy to Jeanne Damas found their way stateside (and onto more runways than we can count).
9. Bombshell Blowouts
2016 was nothing if not a study in contrasts. Punkish beauty statements may have had their moments, but so did a return to unapologetically made-the-effort polish. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Sienna Miller redefined Brit-girl hair with bouncy, round-brush blowouts that were finished with big-barrel irons.
10. Orange Hair
From firecracker tints to the kind of Manic Panic adventures that nature never intended, one of the trickiest shades on the spectrum staged a surprisingly pretty comeback—one that couldn’t feel more subversive when four years of staring at a mind-bending brassy dye job lie ahead.
11. Natural Hair
During a tumultuous year which grew the Black Lives Matter movement—and saw an appeals court ruling dreadlocks a legal reason to rescind a job offer—natural black hairstyles were more political than ever. Is it any wonder that fashion’s resident bad gal embraced a larger-than-life pile of locs?
