You might not know it to look at her (that’s the whole point), but behind every effortlessly cool French girl is a line-up of beauty pros, from hairdressers to aestheticians.
Hairstylist David Mallett, whose Parisian salon sits on Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, is one such expert. He creates just the sort of dreamy, undone styles we associate with aspirational Parisian women for his chic clientele. Below, he shares the secrets behind French hairstyles.
The Morrison cut
And how are our French counterparts wearing their hair now? “There is a real blueprint of softness,” he says. “Even when we’re cutting in a bob that was, in the past, all about geometric lines, now it’s very soft. The French want texture on the ends.” The aesthetic is “bohemian, poetic and soft,” and most important, he says, the cut should not be severe.
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One haircut that is very much de rigueur in France is a soft, shag meets mullet style. Jim Morrison, with his tumble of mussed-up waves, provides an excellent—if unlikely—template. “It’s a poetic soft cascade of hair, and it works beautifully on straight, wavy, and curly hair,” Mallett says. “When a client has long bangs, we make sure the edges are really textured so that the bangs move. French hair is a little less neurotic.”
Poker straight hair? Mais non
Less neurotic than who? You might ask. Well, anyone whose go-to style is ultra straight. The French, he says, have a “total aversion to poker straight hair,” and consider it a surefire way to make hair look “dead.” Instead, it’s all about natural movement: ensuring hair looks perfectly imperfect; nonchalant, but still falling in just the right way.
“They all pretend they don’t care, but actually they have spent hours and hours looking like they don’t,” adds Mallett, amused. “For the French, horror hair is straight, ironed, with a straight center part, and highlights that start at the roots and run straight to the ends. That is what a French woman hates!”
