While the Hacks scene that I posted about in today’s open that bore resemblance to Reese Witherspoon’s arrest was not going viral, people have over the last few days been obsessing over Anne Hathaway’s face following her appearance at the Ralph Lauren show the other day.
She looks f-cking amazing. Which is why social media did what social media does – speculate on whether she’s had any work done. For the last year or so now, everyone’s been talking about the “quiet facelift” as the trend in beauty has moved away from the injected look to more subtle effects. It was an appearance by Lindsay Lohan a few months ago that really took the conversation to the mainstream. And now everyone who shows up looking fresh is suspected of having had a quiet facelift.
In Annie’s case though, in my opinion, it’s not a facelift… it’s a ponytail!
There’s English slang for this. Back in the 1990s and 2000s, we used to call it a “Croydon Facelift” – pull your hair back real tight and you don’t need the knife. Please note, there was a pejorative class judgment with that expression when it was originally conceived, so we’ll drop the geography and just go with ponytail facelift… although, hilariously, there’s an actually cosmetic surgery procedure now called the ponytail facelift and this makes my point. A high tight ponytail will give you the temporary lift that you would get from actual surgery.
And where Annie is concerned, it’s as simple as that: she’s wearing her hair in a ponytail. And her stylist, Orlando Pita, said as much when he talked to Marie Claire about what they were trying to achieve with this look:
“We were trying to create an AI-inspired version of Anne,” the hairstylist behind the look, Orlando Pita. “I think the most important part of this [technique] is using double elastics to make sure that you get a really tight ponytail.”
YES. Double elastics always. And as I’ve always said, a simple high ponytail is one of the most challenging hairstyles to do right. It is deceptively simple and requires experience and a lot of skill. Because it’s super hard to get it smooth and flat across the head and to secure the pony without strays and flyaways and without the pony sagging once the elastics are in or bunching up hair around the elastics. This is why I hate wrapping hair around the base of the pony – because it’s a hack that covers up mistakes. If your stylist knows what they’re doing, they won’t need to wrap and the base will be clean, no bumps and no pieces sticking out.
Back to Annie’s face though and another reason why this is just a ponytail – you need downtime after a facelift. There’s bruising and swelling. And even after the bruising and swelling recedes, it takes months to settle. Like as much as six months sometimes for the full results. Anne’s just come off shooting a film, before that she was visible pretty much every month. There would have no opportunity in the last year.
All this talk about her face though means that they’ve missed the bigger point: nostalgia. Anne was seated in the front row at Ralph Lauren with Michelle Williams and Naomi Watts.
That’s not only a Brokeback Mountain reunion but also, Heath Ledger links all three of them. Heath was with Naomi Watts from 2002 to 2004. After they broke up, he started working on Brokeback which is where he met Michelle. And Annie watched them fall in love. There are bonds between these women that we will never know.
Squawk with us today about ponytails and nostalgia! (App link here)
