If you didn’t know any better, you might think the hit movie title Everything Everywhere All at Once was referring to the bob hair trend. Currently, the hairstyle is everything… and everywhere on social media (#bobhaircut has over 614 million views on TikTok, and on Instagram, you’ll see over 2 million posts with #bobhaircut).
Zendaya, Hailey Bieber, Lizzo, and Ciara have all tried the style in the past several months. And let us not forget Kourtney Kardashian, EmRata, and Jenna Ortega, whose hair now falls above their shoulders. We have seen the micro bob, extreme bob, boxy bob, French bob, Italian bob, lob, job, mob, and names we need not include. There’s little doubt the style is popular — but how does it also manage to seem brand new?
“Every decade, there’s a new take on the bob, and with each incarnation, the bob manages to shock and awe people,” says hairstylist Mark Townsend, who has cut Elizabeth Olsen and Reese Witherspoon’s hair accordingly. Consider the geometric bob that hairstylist Vidal Sassoon made famous in the ’60s and the power bob of the ’80s. “I became a hairdresser when I saw Madonna’s bob in the “Express Yourself” video,” Townsend told Allure. The cut has a way of inspiring.
British hairdresser Vidal Sassoon creates a long bob with a soft fringe for actress Janette Scott. M. McKeown/Getty Images