The chignon is chic, but is it cool?
The French have a name for the sloppy topknot you bundle your hair into before stepping into the shower: They call it a chignon négligé. “Ah, tu parles d’un chignon négligé,” says Sophie, an actress who works the morning shift at my neighbourhood café. As she turns around, I notice a bun at the back of her head that has gone awry, with strands of hair spilling out of an elastic band to achieve that perfect nonchalance that is the Gallic bun. New Yorkers wear their hair in neat, buoyant ponytails, but Parisiennes wear their hair in buns. “Parisiennes do it so that their hair doesn’t get wet in the shower,” says Sophie. “Americans don’t because they wear shower caps,” says Jérôme, who is standing to my right. Everyone in the café chortles.
The rest of the world is now rediscovering what French girls have always worn. On the spring catwalks, topknots and French twists turned up at influential shows like Marc Jacobs, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel and Zac Posen. At Lanvin, the girls sported glorious updos that paired perfectly with their glamorous gowns.
But the story of chignons isn’t about starlets having updos to go with their gowns and jewels; rather, it’s about how much down vibe there is in the updo. At formal award ceremonies and charity balls, the new-style buns are the undone ones. A-listers like Chloë Sevigny and Amanda Seyfried aren’t wearing elaborately upswept, braided, coiled and pinned masterpieces of hair; they’re donning artfully messy updos that look like they’re missing a bobby pin or two.
The other interesting aspect of the trend is that the updo is for downtime— leisurely pursuits like walking the dog or strumming a guitar—not just for proms, balls or walks down the aisle. A Swedish girl I know named Amelie attributes the current updo trend in her country to Swedish pop singer Lykke Li, who often wears her hair in a ’60s-style bun. Amelie points out that chignons are the perfect camouflage for bad-hair days and thin, flyaway hair—all that an unsophisticated ponytail can’t fix. “I don’t like ponytails because they’re for young girls,” says Sophie. “A chignon makes you a woman—it reveals the nape of your neck and is very sensuous.”
A perfect bun or a messy chignon? Find your style on the next page...
Up in the air: Bird-nest messy or retro polished, we love our chignons
