Reflected back on the opposite side of the page was a fetching picture of Winona Ryder, her hair cropped close to her head. I reached for the magazine page and mutely lifted it up, as if pointing out the discrepancy would magically give me the bob I desired. Framing my round face and full cheeks, it looked so completely and utterly wrong. I lifted my head to find not the bob but a supershort pixie cut. I had a sickening feeling, and then he said, 'All set!' Below my feet, so much hair pooled on the floor. It was so drastic, so different from my usual look. At some point, I fixed my eyes down on the tips of my shoes to keep myself from considering the possibility that maybe the bob was a bad idea. He's really into Winona Ryder, I thought as he chopped. You know, she dated Johnny Depp in real life.' 'Did you see her in Edward Scissorhands? Great movie.

'She's gorgeous.' We'd move on to another topic, but then he'd circle back. 'Oh, Winona is so chic, isn't she?' he asked. And as he went along, he kept mentioning Winona Ryder. I presented it to my stylist, a tall, lanky Brit with a mop of thick black hair, before being dispatched to the shampoo station. For a week, I had kept it pressed pristine and flat inside my Trapper Keeper. Finally, we were going to put our theory to the test-new fabulous haircut, new fabulous life.

My mother and I vibrated with excitement as we entered the salon. Their slogan at the time was 'If you don't look good, we don't look good.' I was counting on looking good. The bob obviously had to be obtained where it was created-at Vidal Sassoon. I could see in my mother's eyes that she, too, thought this bob could save me.ĭespite our fierce loyalty to our usual salon, we would no sooner go there for a graduated bob than we would go to a podiatrist for neurosurgery. Before homeroom each day, I willed the hands on the clock to move forward because I had no one to talk to. I was 12, deeply awkward, and not particularly popular.

She concurred that I must indeed have the bob, and soon. Looking back, I think it was the girl's sharp cheekbones and full lips that I actually wanted, but in the moment, all that seemed attainable if the hair could just be had. It featured a beautiful young woman with a chin-length graduated bob, and I knew with sheer adolescent clarity that I had to have that haircut. It was that same year that I tore an ad for Vidal Sassoon hair spray out of a magazine.

Flat top haircut