What Is the Jellyfish Haircut?

Pop quiz: What lives within the ocean, sports activities a mushroom high, radiates a path of angel-hair tentacles and lends its identify to a stylish web haircut?

Final week, a placing photograph shoot that includes Nicole Kidman ignited dialogue of the so-called jellyfish haircut on social media. Some debated whether or not Ms. Kidman’s look was a real jellyfish lower, whereas others discovered of the type for the primary time.

‘It’s nearly punk’

So far as animal-inspired haircuts go, the jellyfish definitely will get factors for creativity even when put next with its cousins wolf hair and the octopus lower. However was Ms. Kidman’s coiffure a real jellyfish lower?

Not precisely. As with many issues on the web, the definition of the jellyfish lower appears to be in flux. Evanie Frausto, who did Ms. Kidman’s coiffure for the brand new problem of Good journal, stated he didn’t got down to give the actress a jellyfish lower however acknowledged that the ultimate consequence shared a lot of its traits. “I actually didn’t even comprehend it was known as ‘the jellyfish,’” he stated in an interview.

Within the photographs, the actress has a blunt pink bob that frames her face, with longer tresses descending towards her torso. Mr. Frausto stated he created a number of seems to be for Ms. Kidman, impressed by the hairstylist Vidal Sassoon’s exact type and Sixties fringe haircuts (Cher’s, particularly).

He selected pink as a nod to Satine, Ms. Kidman’s character in “Moulin Rouge!” And since working actresses like Ms. Kidman can’t drastically change their actual hair, Mr. Frausto stated, “I do convey wigs in for these form of conditions.”

Some folks instructed that Ms. Kidman’s look extra intently resembles the Japanese hime lower. Based on W journal, the hime lower will be traced to the Heian Interval in Japan, starting across the ninth century. Megumi Asaoka, the Japanese pop star, is credited with popularizing the hime lower within the Seventies. In recent times, the look has been related to many anime characters.

Visually, the jellyfish haircut lands someplace between a mullet, a shag and a hime lower: a 360-degree bob with longer hair beneath, near the nape of the neck, with strands of various size to create a layered look.

Based on the superstar hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai, the jellyfish haircut is a “up to date, creative, cleaner” model of a mullet. He stated it reminded him of Mr. Sassoon’s groundbreaking work with daring and asymmetrical hairstyles.

“It’s nearly punk, in a way,” Mr. Fekkai stated. To him, the jellyfish lower says, “I don’t care what you assume.”

Anime was the inspiration for Mari Trombley, a 23-year-old artist in Portland, Ore., when she determined to offer herself a jellyfish haircut in Could. Ms. Trombley is a giant proponent of the look on TikTok: The hashtag #jellyfishhaircut has racked up 10 million views on the platform, and most of the high movies are Ms. Trombley’s.

“I had a personality, Yuna, from ‘Closing Fantasy’ rising up, and I all the time fancied her hair,” Ms. Trombley stated. “She has, like, a blunt bob and an extended braid that goes right down to her ankles. Being half-Japanese and rising up in Japan half time as properly, I grew up seeing the coiffure pop up on different anime characters.”

When she first lower her hair within the type, Ms. Trombley didn’t know there was a reputation for it. It was simply an “over-the-sink, kitchen-scissors haircut,” she stated. When a commenter on TikTok advised her the look was known as the “jellyfish haircut,” she embraced the time period.

Ms. Trombley stated the jellyfish lower differs from the hime lower as a result of that type is brief solely within the entrance, across the face. The jellyfish lower is a bob throughout the pinnacle. So from the again, the jellyfish lower resembles, properly, a jellyfish.

‘Get inventive with customizing your avatars’

TikTok and Instagram are mighty engines in relation to hair tendencies, however they’re as fickle as they’re quick. Mr. Fekkai stated that TikTok each accelerates and exaggerates hair tendencies, favoring whoever can create the wildest, most eye-catching seems to be. However hair tendencies just like the jellyfish usually disappear as shortly as they come up, he stated.

One cause the jellyfish haircut has caught some folks’s consideration is its versatility. It may be styled one method to recommend quick hair, or one other to emphasise the lengthy components with curls, extensions, colour, charms or experimental braids. (Ms. Trombley has braided her lengthy hair into star shapes.)

For her half, Ms. Trombley stated she was simply having fun with the enjoyable and individuality of her look. She added that she will get many messages from strangers on-line saying they’d lower and dyed their hair to appear to be hers. And in individual?

“I’ve gotten unusual seems to be from, like, older girls, and plenty of compliments from youthful folks,” she stated.

In one in every of her hottest TikTok movies, Ms. Trombley emphasizes her predominant piece of recommendation: “Get inventive with customizing your avatars.” She echoed the message in her interview.

“I dwell my life day-after-day prefer it’s a online game,” she stated. “Working my server job and issues like that, I’d costume up and do my hair and make-up simply the identical.”

“You won’t see different folks doing it, however why not break these boundaries the identical means you could change your avatar in a online game?” she continued. “You’ll be able to change what you appear to be tomorrow in case you needed to, and it’s totally as much as you.”