Last month, I spotted the actress Clémence Poésy from across the room at Stella McCartney’s fall fashion show in Paris and experienced what can only be described as a profound pang of longing. Was it the slouchy menswear-inspired jacket, the easy white blouse, the garçonne chic everything? Well, yes. But mostly it was the hair.
With her newly shoulder-grazing blonde bob, she’d transformed from a pretty French starlet into a self-possessed woman who’s capable of commanding a room. You know, the kind of girl who shows up in a tuxedo to black tie, or wears (as Poésy would a day later at the Chanel show) her favorite men’s oxfords with a slim tweed skirt because, presumably, she’d rather look cool and be comfortable.
Poésy’s bob, it turns out, is the handiwork of the Paris-based, superstylist David Mallett, whose charming hôtel particulier salon in the 2nd Arrondissement is a favorite escape of the city’s sought-after actresses, fashion publicists, and designers.
And while I somehow imagined the pair relentlessly puffing away at Gauloises while Mallett snipped his way to painstakingly choppy perfection, it turns out that the decision—and the cut—happened much faster than that (also, to my immense disappointment, there were no Gauloises actually present).
“Clémence wanted a dramatic change, something visible. It was an impulse. We decided to do it in three seconds,” says Mallett, who cut it into something “soft around the edges, not too neat, not too classic. The inspiration was Debbie Harry.” After he’d finished cutting, he sent her to in-house colorist Rémy Faure, who lightened it to what Mallett calls “a very, very pale tone of honey with a bit of shadow at the roots. Parisian girls like for their color to look a little bit faded.”
Translation: You are now exactly one pair of shears, a full set of roots, and a boyfriend jacket away from perfection.