I really feel for Brutus here, the old dog. To cut down one’s long-treasured friend for the sake of the masses is a tricky bind to be in. In his case he lost his friendship with Caesar. In my case it was my hair. This week saw OM, NJ and FS independently ask me why I wasn’t groomed to my usual standard, then decided (after some rather uncouth debate) it must be the length of my hair making me look unkempt.
Truth be told, I’ve always fancied having hair the length of a mermaid’s and have long harboured a touch of envy for their real-life counterparts – the (mainly) blonde creatures who have insouciantly flowing locks a-plenty. That is what I was aiming for.
Perhaps it is the child in me who still thinks there is an element of magic in those locks and that, like Rapunzel, they may one day come in handy. Although, after all the deep conditioning luscious lengths require, I really don’t think I’d be inclined to even let a prince use it as a climbing rope. I started looking at modern day hair icons and found that, by and large, long isn’t the thing. The midi is having a moment, and not only in skirt length.
Hair is being lopped off in the celebrity world left, right, and centre. Take Palermo and Cole, for example.
It really does say something about the influence of others that it took only a day of consideration before I went into the hairdresser to remove two years of hard-grown graft. Clutching a photo in sweaty palms I sat and waited while he snip snip snipped away, in that casual way hairdressers do. It was a massacre; there is still hair at the bottom of my Mulberry. The length is fine but the ‘creative’ addition of layers means that I am not sporting the trendy midi but the ghastly Rachel cut. I am bereft, even though my head now feels exceptionally light, and I’m sure that were I to weigh myself I’d have lost at least a stone (this is my consolatory thought through these dark hours).
People keep telling me they love it, so I suppose I have pleased the masses who were clamouring for the chop. Me, myself, I am clearly merely the said underling when it comes to my appearance.
Having now decided I will regrow and not listen in two years when I am told to trim, my advice to all those being criticised for sticking to their guns on the style front (Kate Middleton – I mean you) is to stick it out.
Fashion comes and goes but, as Oscar said, to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. And how could one love oneself without hair befitting a fairytale?
