Did your hair move much in 2025? Mine sure didn’t.
In 2026, I’m changing that. I want hair that bounces to the beat on a dance floor again, even if it’s just a single “Champagne-flute” shaped wavy bang swinging in front of my eyes. After an extended bob-era, full of cold dollops of hair gel in the morning, brushed through to form a slicked-back, sculptural approximation of a chignon—I’m letting my hair down. And the recent shows are leading my inspiration.
Just this month at Matthieu Blazy’s inaugural Chanel Metiers d’Art show in New York’s Bowery station, hair artist Duffy sent down bouncing side parts, and Chanel’s couture look also followed suit. For Jonathan Anderson’s vision of beauty at his first Dior women’s show in October, Guido Palau fluffed up models’ natural texture, not dissimilar from the windswept waves and pre-Raphaelite curls the hairstylist created for Veronica Leoni’s September Calvin Klein debut. It’s a 180 from the every-hair-toothbrushed-into-place buns we’ve been seeing these past few seasons.
“We just kind of cleaned all the hair up—we took it all away, and so now I think we are craving a messiness, something a little bit uncontrolled,” says Sarah Hindsgaul, the Emmy-nominated hair designer for Stranger Things who knows how to create a neck-up character transformation (just ask Joe Keery).
There’s a level of perfection to the slick-back that’s felt safe for highly surveilled life, Hindsgaul thinks. “The bun is a great feeling because it’s kind of like, don’t fuck with me,” she notes, adding that when freezing hair in place on set, she feels like it’s a signature of the “bad guys because I find it very eerie and inhuman.” Now, in an increasingly AI-influenced world, we’re approaching a moment where people want to express their humanity in a new way. “I think having hair that is able to move through different identities and allowing yourself to play the character that you feel like playing in 2026, not just locking into your algorithm, is really important,” says Benjamin Mohapi, hair artist and founder of celeb-favorite Benjamin Salon, which just opened a new location in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood. Imperfection and movement are what make us human, he points out, and right now “we need to be separate from the machines.”
But, I’m stressed—when I stop slicking every strand into its place, there’s always a greater chance of error right on my way out the door. “This concept of a bad hair day, it shouldn’t even be a thing,” Mohapi declares. “It’s like, it’s a hair day.” Hindsgaul agrees. “It is a risk, and you’re really putting yourself out there, and I think everybody has insecurities about their hair. They’re like, oh, my hair gets frizzy,” she shares. “The stuff that bothers you is what s really, really beautiful. That’s what gives you all of this extra texture; it gives you an aura.” She likes approaching the untameable. “You can’t really control hair, you have to love it for being its own little monster,” she says with a laugh, comparing makeup artists to “dog people” and hair artists to “cat people,” because for the latter, “you just don t know what you will get this morning—I love that they’re wild.”
Freeing your born-with-it (and gently enhanced!) texture and swapping precision tools for your hands is what everyone seems to agree is on the forecast for 2026. “I think we’re going to see a lot more people wearing their hair down and out, free flowing, and bouncy or curly short and chopped styles, but more out than slicked,” says editorial hair artist and Hair Rituel by Sisley international brand ambassador Jawara. When I explain that I still am a “hair up” person and just want a little more swing to things, he tells me that “a great way to have a bit more movement in an updo is to do things a bit loosely with the fingers and not be so tight and have so much tension,” Jawara explains. Then, let your clean girl training wash away: “I always like to mess it up a little bit—pull a couple pieces out and use a little bit of The Invisible Hold Hairspray to kind of keep the tighter pieces in place,” he says. “That always seems to work really well for me.” For fine hair like mine, Mohapi suggests to “get the texture in first and then whatever,” and likes Iles Formula Curl Revive Haute Performance Spray and Salty Texture Spray to amp up all hair types and then shapes the rest with creaseless cover clips (before the setting clip boom, he used to make his own with playing cards or pieces of felt). “Don t comb it into place. Don t brush it. You can still try and make it as perfect as you can, but get rid of the tools so that you are just using your hands.”
Then, consider unhanding the hairspray and reaching for something floofier. For Hindsgaul, “everybody has to use a mousse,” she says of the undersung hero that she just designed for her forthcoming line. “If you’re curly, straight, want it messy, want it clean, put a mousse in it and let it dry with your blow dryer or naturally into the shape that you want,” she says, promising it’s one of the few products that allows hair to stay in that direction “with movement.” She likes to push the hair forward (a very rockstar, indie sleaze-era move). “I want people to want my eyes,” she says of the power of a well-placed tendril or bang. “You have the movement right in front of your eyes, and you have people curious—who is that? I want the mystery.”
At the very least, Hindsgaul wants people to start “daring to be themselves” without the pressure to be picture-perfect every moment. “Just have some fucking fun. Why not?”
Have a beauty or wellness trend you re curious about? We want to know! Send Vogue’s senior beauty wellness editor an email at beauty@vogue.com.
