How Katy Perry, Kristen Stewart and Paris Jackson are proving that hair speaks louder than words

Each cut has shades of gender neutrality, but none is feminine in a traditional sense
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Haircuts are codified. The right ones can signal power, boldness and sass; the wrong ones meekness or an absence of character.

Confusingly, the right ones on some people are the wrong ones on others, though there are a few rules. Hiding behind long curtains suggests shyness; a sculptural bob conjures commanding leadership. And the tightly shorn, peroxide crop says you are claiming your image and remaking the world according to your own rules.

Moreover, this week, it became the chosen way to say plenty without speaking a word.

On Tuesday night Kristen Stewart presented her version to the world at the premiere of her new film Personal Shopper. Since Twilight, Stewart had worn her hair long-ish and dark brown; recently she had it swept back but, broadly, the style was unremarkable. This transformation, therefore, is extraordinary.

Stewart has recently come out ("I’m so gay, dude," she announced while hosting Saturday Night Live) and is taking more serious roles that clearly interest her. The haircut designates that she’s not disowning her past so much as owning her future.

Which is how you can read Katy Perry’s new crop - also presented this week and, not irrelevantly, soon after her break-up with Orlando Bloom. It’s a pixie cut, very blonde, a little bit undercut and neither "pretty" nor retiring. It’s the haircut you get when life takes a joyful turn for the selfish and all you care about is you, and whether or not you look cool.

Perry admits she was inspired by Scarlett Johansson: "I’d been going, 'Should I do it? Should I not do it? Will it go with my face?' And I saw Scarlett Johannson and she had the same cut. So I went there."

Paris Jackson - now finding her feet as a model - has a blonde, shaggy version and model Ruth Bell - an identical twin - took her own identity-forming step when she pruned her long, glossy curtains down to a severe buzz cut.

It is like a reversal of Samson’s myth: finding strength through cutting your hair. Each cut has shades of gender neutrality - Stewart’s more than Jackson’s - but none is feminine in a traditional sense.

Each thumbs its nose at how women "should" look. Here, Cara Delevingne merits an honourable mention for her grey-platinum bob, which she presented to the world at the Chanel show this week.

Chanel AW17 at Paris Fashion Week

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Power rejects rules: the point with this haircut is you do it and make it look however you want. Tear your hair out.

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