It’s only 6pm and I’m already running back to my hotel like Cinderella, scooting away from Chloé’s highly secure backstage within Paris’s Unesco headquarters, curvy French pins falling from my hair with every step.
A few hours ago I was having my toddler-fine lengths curled and professionally pinned for the first time in a long time. A few years into a bob, I’m ready to let my hair up.
Naturally a “hair up” person, the business-woman-special chin length I’ve maintained, trim after trim, kept me living a “hair down” life. But after an awkward-phase summer and with the help of Omi Hair Growth Peptide gummies (tasty enough to remind me to actually eat them), my ends finally touch my shoulders when pulled completely taut. Cue the spring/summer 2026 runways, where up-dos appeared to be everywhere.
Backstage at Sandy Liang in New York, I found Evanie Frausto creating half-up hair with a dramatic “Clueless-style” curled tendril falling on one side of a model’s face. He praises the up-do’s transformative abilities, especially during growing-out phases.
“You don’t need perfect lines or a professional hand,” Frausto says, touting a certain unfussy energy over control. “You just twist, pin and suddenly you’re in a new mood. That immediacy is powerful.” He believes “hair has permission to be everything at once”, from ultra-minimal graphic up-dos to playful takes on height and shine. “After so many seasons of sharp bobs and centre parts, there’s a craving for looseness,” he says.
There’s a balance, though. Those butterfly clips clamping hair artist Yusuke Morioka’s relaxed twists for Undercover’s collection presentation at its showroom would weigh heavy in my ultra-fine hair – I just know it. So, too, would the multiple covetable combs that superstar stylist Guido Palau used to hold The Row’s elaborate chignons. At Hodakova, Holli Smith “did some messy braids”, she writes, finished by simply rolling the end so that the tails disappeared.
Off the runway, and as the algorithm tends to do when your interest has been piqued in something, I’m being served “No-Tie Hairstyles From Princesses” videos on Instagram showing the Princess of Wales with her lengths deftly twirled into a gorgeous knot without a pin in sight.
Back on the runway, even the most formal looks delivered a certain sense of ease. For Richard Quinn’s opera-themed London show, Sam McKnight, he of hairdressing royalty himself, wanted an “haute couture up-do” that served as “an ode to glamour and elegance”. Petticoats and corsets called for “a sleek French twist and volume”, misted with a product from his eponymous line that adds a grip in the spirit of the season, creating a dynamic yet easy up-do.
As it happens, I could use a little grip myself. An hour and 30 hairpins into my styling appointment, the time has come to dive into a car if I want to make it backstage to Chloé. It’s only taken one slippery, heat-protecting spritz of Shaeri Soin Quotidien Haircare Leave-In Spray to learn that, as my romantic ringlets melt into spaghetti strings, an old-school product may be essential for lifting my baby-fine strands.
Redken Forceful 23 Super Strength Hairspray is “a perfect example of what needs to be backstage for every hair kit”, New York-born hair artist Shamicka Williams tells me.
She’s worked for years on Palau’s team creating runway looks for textured hair, whether with braids or straighter styles utilising appropriate care, and this season was an embarrassment of up-do riches: “We did up-dos for Tom Ford. We did up-dos for Schiaparelli. We did up-dos for Akris. We did up-dos for Tory Burch. We did up-dos for Cos,” Williams says, counting the aforementioned “beautiful wave of combs” created for The Row as a “wonderful” favourite.
I tell her I see cans of Redken 23 everywhere backstage. “You will because it does everything for everyone,” she says. “As long as it’s done in a certain fashion – 23 and a blow dryer – you’ll get the style of your life.”
On my last full day in Paris, I’m outside a mansion once owned by Karl Lagerfeld watching teams prepare for Thom Browne’s show. Ukrainian-born model Paulina Klieshcheva is wearing one of hairdresser James Pecis’s spacey bob wigs stacked atop a set of braids that run down her back. She tells me that during casting season, she wears a rubber band on her wrist because “it’s really, really useful” to throw her hair into a “kind of messy” ponytail or a bun. “Protest the perfect!” she enthuses with a laugh.
A couple of hours later, hairstylist Duffy sends low-slung ballerina buns onto the Chanel catwalk that appear as though they’d easily be achieved with a single elastic.
Soon, it’s time for Miu Miu’s afterparty. This time, I’m doing everything myself and I’ve already considered chopping baby bangs to re-create the surfer-inspired up-dos at Dries Van Noten. Olivier Schawalder, the wizard behind the look, explained that he wanted them to read as if a model might have cut her own fringe before catching a wave. Piece-y and cool, it’s a look that could believably appear on Hailey Bieber (who’s been seen wearing something similar sans the controversial mini-bangs made famous by Courteney Cox in Scream 3).
I resist the sewing kit scissors and instead revisit the pile of leftover bobby pins. Starting with a generous misting of IGK Body Language Rice Water Plumping and Thickening Mist, I let everything air-dry and then plait my hair on each side and pull everything into a spiky bun with one black hair tie, two pins and a cloud of classic L’Oréal Paris Elnett unscented hairspray. I pull out a couple of romantic tendrils, smush some loose lavender glitter onto my lids, throw on a tux jacket, call an Uber and take a selfie in the elevator mirror.
Arriving just as Mrs Prada is leaving, I make it past the ropes (barely) and onto Gigi Rigolatto’s terrace overlooking the Paris skyline. Two model-looking stars are trying to squeeze their way to the bar and one stops to call out with sparkly, Champagne friendliness, “I love your…” and circles my head with a swirly, elegant hand motion. Merci, et bonsoir.
