Every morning, I wake up and observe something strange. My hair, previously a sort of pixie cut mullet with a middle part, has somehow leapt across my scalp in the night and settled into a side fringe. No, no, this surely won’t do. I duly claw it back into place in front of the bathroom mirror. Until recently, that is, when I just… left it how it was. Clearly that’s where my fringe wants to be. Even my hair knows that I was born during the wrong half of the ’90s.
For a while there, side parts were lambasted by Gen Z for being distinctly millennial (in a bad way, even though I’m personally of the belief that millennials are the cooler generation). In recent months, however—alongside skinny jeans and the like—the side fringe tide has slowly started to turn. Our girl Zendaya loves a side fringe. Iris Law is often loyal to a pixie cut side fringe. And Charli xcx showed up to Paris fashion week with the most side fringey side fringe I’ve seen since the early 2010s, which was what finally clinched it (as the saying goes: you know what? Hell, yeah).
Fortunately for me (and for anyone else considering this brave shift), having curtain bangs or a center part shouldn’t prevent you from wearing your fringe to the side if you so desire. Dale Herne, stylist at Hershesons, actually prefers it that way (rather than cutting in a side fringe to begin with). “The reason why that works best is because it creates a lot of volume on the side parting, which makes it look more modern and less flat,” he explains. “There’s nothing worse than cutting a side fringe from a side parting—it sits too static and dead.”
Styling the side fringe to make it feel more 2020s is also a matter of playing fast and loose. “Once you have your curtain bangs cut in, blow dry your hair from the right to left and then the left to right,” says Herne. “Don’t blow dry in the side parting—you want to create as much life and movement as possible. And then put your hands through the hair and wear it to the side.”
Will I be wearing a side part at all times from now on? Probably not. But during those mornings when I wake up looking like I’ve just emerged from the Big Topshop circa 2010? I’m just going to run with it.
