I noticed it earlier than I knew what to name it: Tresses whipping ferociously to music and limbs contorting to match the rhythm (and finally failing to maintain up). The stage is the place hair thrives, the place it turns into greater than an adjunct, reworking an unusual efficiency right into a spectacle. I used to be only a teen (and a Glee obsessive) once I discovered there was a phrase for it: Hairography. And that’s exactly how movie star hairstylist and Charli XCX collaborator Matt Benns approaches hair: as a efficiency language able to telling a narrative that no lyric or eight-count choreography can. So what does that appear like when constructing the hair storyboard for Charli XCX’s satirical A24 mockumentary The Second? One phrase: angle.
Whether or not you’re rewatching her Boiler Room set for the umpteenth time or have been fortunate sufficient to attain tickets to a Brat tour cease, you discover Charli XCX’s hair in movement first, then her sultry, erratic swings following carefully behind. “Earlier than I met her, I used to be watching quite a lot of her performances. Then I spotted, she actually makes use of her hair to maneuver and create such a robust stage presence,” Benns explains by way of Zoom. “It’s a significant a part of the angle she carries. Her hair is wild, lengthy, and capable of transfer.”
In The Second, Charli asks a couple of questions: After portray the world acid inexperienced with the globally beloved Brat album, how does an artist evolve with out dropping herself to label vultures pining for an additional viral motion? And what would she appear like if she gave in to the pressures of the trade? In keeping with Benns, the visible reply started with one thing apparent: Go inexperienced. “We did inexperienced strips of coloration in her hair, actually Brat,” he says. Within the movie, Charli wears them whereas rehearsing for a warped, over-the-top model of her tour that clashes together with her inventive imaginative and prescient.
To faucet into the movie’s extra pared-down moments, Benns targeted on emphasizing “who she is as an individual and the issues she naturally does,” he explains, which translated into highlighting her “carefree” spirit by way of uncooked, huge, lengthy hair. The ensuing aesthetic emphasizes size, motion, and bounce throughout a number of kinds—from slicked-back seems to be to center components—all unified by lived-in texture and angle.
“Size is certainly one thing that [Charli and I] each actually pushed for. I personally love extra-long hair as a result of it’s so impactful. There are additionally straight items that deliberately fall by way of the waves. I like the imperfection and the wildness of it,” Benns provides. In fact, attaining that stability between polish and imperfection depends on a couple of supporting gamers.
The celebs of his hairstyling package have been Bumble and Bumble’s Curl Defining Hair Mousse and Thickening Dryspun Texture Spray Gentle, each of which helped volumize and refine Charli’s “several types of curls” throughout the extra pure glam scenes. “These have been used when the pure hair is extra curly, and there’s a bit extra frizz. It [gave] a bit extra of a lived-in look,” he explains. “The curling mousse is what I used once I was doing quite a lot of diffusing. I added quite a lot of Invisible Oil Spray to the hair, then added the mousse on high. Generally I braided a few of it, different instances I used a heated tong to create completely different curl textures.”
Bumble and bumble Spray de Mode Versatile Maintain Hairspray
Bumble and bumble Thickening Dryspun Texture Spray Gentle
Bumble and bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil
Bumble and bumble Styling Oil
Bumble and bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil Lengthy Final Styling Cream
For extra polished, uniform curls, he reached for the Invisible Oil Primer (and a contact of the Invisible Oil Cream). Lastly, Spray de Mode acted because the sealant that retains the curls, physique, and sheen in place.
If there’s one factor he’s most enthusiastic about this yr, it’s increasing and experimenting with Charli XCX’s hair glam. Benns predicts blowout dominance for 2026. “I like a bouncy Cher [Horowitz] blowout. I believe we’re going to see much more of that—extra sleeker seems to be,” he says. “A blowout with quite a lot of angle, in fact.”
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