NYFW 2017 Was Great but It Didn’t Make Pink Hair Cool
This year’s New York Fashion Week sparked its usual, widespread discussion of what’s “in” now. Vogue is under the impression that the lesson in the 2018 Spring line up is that long, pink hair with accessories is the cool thing to do right now.
But we’ve been watching colorists play with shades of red for the last couple years, and can assure you they’ve been making pink hair cool for a while now. Just because Alexander Wang dropped one model into his show with “rose-quartz” hair doesn’t mean it’s a new way to make a statement. Not to dismiss the work Josh Wood did on that hair; it looked great, but if it’s pink hair worn boldly you want now, we have some things to show you.
Metallic Pink with Lilac Extensions
Crystal Kim put up this metallic pink a while back, turning up the volume on what you thought was pink and threading light purple into the hair extensions to set the color off. The is actually a much deeper color than what Kim usually creates. Her usual aesthetic signifies an incredibly light and precise touch with pastels, which makes this strong, almost-red color all the more significant. Kim has always worked hard at refining a particular color style, but when she steps out and colors something a little louder, it’s always for a reason.
Sunset Color Melt
Nicki Nguyen set aside the subtleties of light, multi-tonal layers of delicately painted pink and dropped a bomb of pink and yellow. Don’t get us wrong. There’s some fine, subtle shading and cutting at work here. Nicki has put a lot of dimension into it. Cutting the end of the hair into a semi-uneven, frayed look creates an interesting frame for her work and saves the style from looking blocky. But It takes a while to pull your eyes away from this menagerie of color long enough to notice those things.
Rebel Pink Bob
You want to talk about multi-tonal color and cut dimension you better make sure you take a look at what Rickey Zito is doing these days. One of the most fascinating things about Rickey’s work is how he manages to take the mule-kick feeling of grunge and rebellion and compress it into diamond. In this case the diamond is a rough-cut pink bob. This seems all the better in the face of post-fashion week talk about long hair coming back. Long hair is welcome to come back, but RIckey will keep doing what he wants.
Balayage with Pink Highlights
If you’ve ever seen Vena Love’s work before you know this color and style is unusually understated. Vena’s status quo is often to upset everyone else’s with extreme vivids that defy our definitions of color and normalcy. This color really shows off Vena’s versatility. The dominance of a blonde/brunette color melt creates a dimensional canvas that’s just standard enough to accentuate the touches of pink balayage but almost hide exactly where that pink is coming from. You end up looking at a well done brunette balayage-ombre that inexplicably makes you think of pink.