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13thsongbird · 5 years

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I tell myself I won’t apologize every single time I post on this blog after a long hiatus, but I grew up a Catholic in Ohio – we apologize for everything! So to anyone who might sometimes read this, I apologize for my incredibly long absence. One of my resolutions for the new year is to post more regularly here, so hopefully there’ll be more content showing up more regularly.

(I know this is my second post of the new year – Happy 2019! – but I started writing it first, so I figured I’d leave this all in.)

So! The thing that convinced me I needed to write again – it wasn’t a particular pattern, or make (although I would like to do a post on my family’s Christmas presents soon), but rather a life choice I made in early December. Almost my entire life, and certainly my entire adult life, one of my identifiers has been my hair. I’ve heard myself summed up as the tall girl with the super long hair more times than I can count, and after 27-plus years it had become a major part of my identity. This year, though, I started feeling disenchanted with my hair. It just… sat there. I hardly ever knew quite what to do with it, and so it spent a lot of time in ponytails and messy buns, the latter especially on days when I couldn’t get its texture quite right. I always hovered somewhere between straight and wavy, with annoying levels of frizz for the constant lack of volume. I love the color of my hair, but the days on which I loved my hair itself were growing less and less frequent. Time for a change. The problem was, the few times I’ve gone short, I’ve been less than impressed, and none of the shorter hairstyles I was finding were giving me any sort of thrill – there was no feeling of, wow. I bet I would rock that. Then one day, I can’t for the life of me remember why, I started looking up Instagram hashtags like #baldgirl and #buzzcutgirl and fell down a rabbit-hole of one thrill after another. These women looked badass. They looked large and in charge and incredibly free. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and slicked my hair back into the smallest, tightest bun I could and studied the shape of my head. Could I? Did I dare?

I figured it was best to talk it out. I asked a small circle of friends, including one who was a genius with hair and could give me a professional opinion, and was overwhelmed with the positive response: apparently, everyone else thought I could rock a buzz cut too. (I didn’t want to go full bald – like I said, I like the color of my hair, and I didn’t like the idea of going all the way to the scalp. Not for me.) While I initially toddled off to a salon, thinking it would be better to let a professional make the first chop, I was appalled by the price of a haircut in New York – even in Astoria, I’d be looking at between $65 and $85 to have someone whack off all my hair and then cut it all the same distance from my scalp, and it was even more expensive the closer I got to Manhattan. In hindsight, and after talking to my sister who also sports a short and semi-androgynous haircut, I could have gone looking for a unisex barber shop and probably gotten a much better deal, but instead I returned home and looked up every video and tutorial I could on buzzing your own head. It looked simple enough. I just wanted everything one length.

And so, I took a “before” picture. I knocked on my roommate’s door and asked to borrow his clippers. I sectioned off my hair into four pigtails, pulled out the scissors, and tried not to hyperventilate as I snipped through each pigtail between the hair tie and my scalp. And then – I ran my hands through my hair. It was so easy to ruffle it around, in its strange, short, ragged strands, and I easily spent ten minutes just fussing it around in the mirror and laughing at myself. It wasn’t an anticlimactic moment exactly, but I think somehow I’d expected to be overcome by such a huge shift, and instead it made me feel both physically and mentally lighter. A much longer time later than I expected (buzzing hair for the first time takes a hot minute), I’d used the clippers to trim everything as evenly as I could to 3/8″ from my scalp. I then spent the next half hour alternating between running my hands back and forth over the short bristly texture of my head and running to my roommates’ rooms to make them do the same.

Before…

…and after!

I don’t know if I’m just incredibly lucky in my friends and family, or if I really was just meant to have a buzz cut, but the response to my new look has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve had a lot of people tell me how much they admire and respect me for making such a bold choice, and nearly as many sigh and say they wished they had the balls to do something similar. I’ve been told I have a well-shaped head (phew!) and that I carry it off very well. As for my own response, I absolutely adore it. I’ve had a few wistful moments when I see a very cool hairstyle and remember that I can’t try it on myself anymore, and I had a distressingly discontented streak when I was home over Christmas when I worried I was having second thoughts until I realized I just needed to start trimming everything down to my 3/8″ sweet spot on a weekly basis, but on the whole I’ve been super happy with my shorn head. It feels so nice! And it makes me look like Furiosa!

The steepest learning curve aside from my new haircare duties (daily washing is pretty much unavoidable if I want to look kempt, and weekly trims are a must) has been figuring out how the new proportions of my head affect how I look in my clothing and jewelry, which in turn is influencing my sewing plans for the new year. Strangely, removing two feet of hair that used to frame your face, neck, and shoulders changes your look. Who knew?? One thing I’ve discovered is that I’m not crazy about how traditional shirt collars look – I don’t know if it’s because adding bulk around my neck makes me look pin-headed, or if the full collar just feels needlessly fussy next to the sleek minimalism of my hair, but I’m leaning more toward a mandarin collar finish on button-up shirts and the like. For a long time, I was obsessed with making myself more button-up shirts, and constantly guilting myself for not having made up the Grainline Archer even though I’ve had the paper pattern printed and put together for nearly a year. I was also wild to make the Deer&Doe Bruyere shirt, and as many Alder shirtdresses as my closet would hold. Now, though, I’m trying to decide – if I make them now, will I even wear them?

On the flip side, I’m loving the proportions of a bulky scarf or cowl/turtleneck, maybe because they frame my neck and shoulders better? A bulky green infinity scarf a friend gave me has been getting a lot of play in my wardrobe this winter, so I’m looking at adding some oversized cowl necklines to my winter makes where possible – my Make Nine 2019 includes a Colette Moneta with just such an added cowl neckline. Or maybe I’ll just make a bunch of scarves so I can mix and match! I’m still analyzing and working things out re:collars, but those two discoveries have been huge so far.

I also much prefer a less girly silhouette, since I personally find the buzz cut both more grown-up and more androgynous than my long locks, and I’m looking towards tailored, clean details and more… mature colors? Mature isn’t the right word, but where before I could count on two feet of dark brown hair to tone down a Rainbow Brite-esque color scheme, now I have to temper bright colors within the outfit itself. I’m looking to add more strong neutrals to my wardrobe, especially in darker tones since it’s winter now, and I’ve already started playing with the way I put together the color palette of an outfit. I’d like to move towards having my beloved jewel tones as strong accents, rather than the entirety of an outfit – or, if they are the entirety, then maybe just focus on one, rather than cramming in as many as I can stand.

One of the strange but awesome perks has been discovering that my long-time aversion to pullover sweaters is gone, since the thing I hated was having to finagle them over my hair without destroying it with static. I discovered this when I tried on the Finlayson sweater I made my little sister for Christmas and realized I loved both how it looked and how it felt, and I immediately started scheming over which fabrics in my stash would make a good lightweight sweater. New York City in the winter absolutely demands layers, as I rush from warm apartment, to frigid streets, to drafty subway stops, to overheated subway cars, and back out into the cold, and being able to take a pullover on and off easily is a game-changer. Bring on the pullovers!

Obviously, these revelations are unique to my experience – not everyone thinks the same things look good, which is one of the things I love best about fashion! I’m definitely still getting used to the new look, but overall I’m really happy, and I’m excited to keep exploring the options I have in front of me. Going into a brand new year, I feel optimistic that I can shed past negativities and restrictions I put on myself just as easily as I chopped off all my hair, and move towards new projects and dreams without letting anything hold me back. Am I putting too much faith in a haircut I love? Maybe – but I learned a long time ago not to underestimate how the way I look can change the way I live my life.

The Chop: When, Why, How, and How It’s Influencing My Sewing I tell myself I won't apologize every single time I post on this blog after a long hiatus, but I grew up a Catholic in Ohio - we apologize for everything!

#buzz cut #hair #new year #personal style

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