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Short Short Bangs: Hot Or Naw? An Investigation In Pictures

By Tori Preston | Celebrity | March 5, 2018 |

By Tori Preston | Celebrity | March 5, 2018 |


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Emma Watson is a style icon, promoting sustainable fashion choices while looking chic AF… most of the time. On the red carpet for Vanity Fair’s Oscar afterparty last night, Watson got as much attention for her temporary, misspelled “Times Up” tattoo as she did for her vintage Ralph Lauren dress. But around the ol’ Pajiba water cooler (a.k.a. Slack channel), we didn’t really care about her outfit or her tattoo. We wanted to talk about her hair.

Especially dem BANGS.

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The Overlords covered a pretty wide spread in our reactions to Emma’s hairstyle, and the “short short bangs” aesthetic in general. Some people feel like nobody looks good in super short bangs, and that the only purpose they serve is to somehow magically extend the height of the forehead. Like, even if you have a big forehead, topping it with a 1-inch fringe of hair will make it seem bigger somehow.

Other people were on the fence, but hey — Emma Watson can make anything look good. And then there were folks who could point to other famous people they feel pull off the look pretty well. And those people were argued with by the first anti-short bangs camp. Really, it was vicious.

As a sometimes bang-haver, I have a certain sympathy for the short short style of bangs. Not because it always looks good necessarily, but because I can see how chopping them short would buy you time before you have to go get your bangs trimmed. Because really, there is such a narrow window when most bangs actually look good. For me, it’s the span of time between when I get them cut and when I wash my hair next, but for most normal humans who know how to do their hair, it’s probably a bit longer than that. Like, a week maybe? And sure, OK, most salons will offer bang-trim touch-ups for free, but who fucking has the time for that shit? Even when I had a short pixie cut I never did maintenance. I’d wait till that shit went full Florence Henderson lady-mullet before I’d finally go get it cut again.

What I’m saying is, I’m not a good judge. So I’m just going to share some memorable recent shortie bangs and let you lot weigh in. First off though, here’s Bettie Page as a reminder that this is obviously not a new trend:

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Emily V. Gordon has been rocking the look for awhile — styling her bangs somewhere between the super-structured pin-up girl look and the shaggy fringe Emma Watson has.

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Another Emma, Roberts this time, also gave them a whirl:

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In the world of cinema, ultra-short bangs helped highlight Audrey Tautou’s luminous eyes in Amélie:

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And over in the “When Beyoncé does it, it’s always good” camp is, of course, Beyoncé as seen in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video:

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What say you? Are short short bangs always cute, always an abomination, or can only certain people pull them off? Please cite examples. I’m willing to be swayed. Also, I maybe have a haircut appointment coming up…