The last time I wore ribbons in my hair, I was also wearing a leotard and tights: As a kid at the School of American Ballet, I would often decorate my slicked-back bun with elaborate satin bows. They matched the ribbons I crisscrossed along my ankles, binding my pointe shoes to my feet, and the stretchy belts my classmates and I wrapped around our waists. My tendus may have been insufficiently turned out—but when I pinned on my favorite pale blue ribbons, at least I could be confident that the back of my head looked pretty.
Now in my 30s, I’ve largely relegated ribbons to the realm of little-girlhood. But clearly, it’s time to reevaluate: They dominated the runways this year, from Sandy Liang’s tidy pastels and floor-skimming streamers to the cheery, print-on-print chaos at Collina Strada, where raw-edged ribbons swung haphazardly from models’ heads. On TikTok, Gen Z’ers are swapping out shoelaces for decorative strips of all shades and taping long bows to the sides of their eyes, as if crying preppy tears. The trend has spilled over into interior design, jewelry, tattoos, and even baked goods. (Artist Lina Sun Park weaves ribbons into the laminations of croissants.) No surprise, ex-bunheads are at the forefront of the trend: Hailey Bieber, who studied ballet into her teens, has worn them everywhere from the couch to the Met Gala; and Margaret Qualley went to Cannes with a head-size organza bow affixed to her ponytail.
But my ballet dreams have long since been laid to rest; could I pull off a style that reminded me more of being 11 than 31? On a drizzly day in London, I met with Leonie Tobierre at her tranquil salon Onyx to survey some of the styles she’s lately been recruited to create—mini bows clipped along the diagonal, ribbons knotted through loose waves. We decided on a pulled-back style with narrow black satin, then she parted my hair down the middle, twisted it into two French braids, and wove the ribbon in between them, as though she were…
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