When talking about short hair on women, Mia Farrow’s name never fails to come up in discussion. Since the actress took a pair of fingernail scissors to her flaxen strands in 1966, snipping them into a choppy, above-the-ear pixie, the world took notice. But Farrow wasn’t the first or the last beauty to debut an eternally elegant short crop.
A decade earlier, Audrey Hepburn dominated the silver screen (notably in Roman Holiday and Sabrina) sporting an elfin, layered pixie cut with bangs that beautifully framed her soft features and had women all over rushing to their hairdresser. In the 1950s, a gamine chop was as much a mark of independence as it was a beauty statement.
Sometimes, taking the short-hair plunge can even be a career maker. When Peter Lindbergh convinced Linda Evangelista to chop her brunette lengths in 1988, the model’s rates, in her own words, “quadrupled.” Agyness Deyn also saw her modeling career skyrocket after a sharp crop.
In more recent years, Halle Berry, Hanaa Ben Abdesslem, Farida Khelfa, and Lily Collins have all embraced cooler, edgier variations of the short cut, styling it in an array of ways. Take Khelfa for instance, who gathers her raven lengths into a fauxhawk, or Watson, who rakes back her strands for a sleek, polished effect.
Above, a look back at some of our favorite short hair cuts.
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