And the trend is not Nepal-limited. The 70’s and 80’s hair trend of letting your natural curls cascade has made its comeback on the international scene as well. Big curves and waves, for example, ruled Marc Jacobs’ runways this year. This free-flowing hair pattern, which way back in the day connoted unkemptness and a lack of hygiene, came to prominence in the radical 60’s, when wild locks signified a deviant soul breaking free from the mainstream-bound, suburbia-centered booming-fifties ethos. If you were not going to be hemmed in by society, your hair was not going to be hemmed in too.
That curls have come full circle can be evinced from young celebrities such as Taylor Swift’s taking to the look wholeheartedly. Swift, has, for example, forgone taming her naturally wild curls into straight strands and instead decided to create variations of the curly essence, by sometimes tightly winding them into ringlets , sometimes frizzying them into a leonine mane, and sometimes tangling them to create a Medusa effect. And here at home, Usha Khadgi, the former Miss Nepal, has decided to keep it closer to basics, by maintaining her natural curls, and Mahima Bhattarai, the famous RJ slash VJ, has settled for waves.
If we review the trend, we’ll see that in the days past, girls here preferred to curl their hair only for special occasions, as if curls were to be unleashed only together with their socialite self; on the other, staid days, they stayed with the slick and straight. But today, in this world of 24/7 news cycles and the 24/7 living of life-in-a-rush, curls have become the new 24/7 look too.
The look has trickled down from celebrities to just about everyone who’s keeping up with the times. Nima Pasang, a sales person, who preferred straight hair a couple of years back, has lately gone small tight curls. She actually turned to curls to break away from the pack, “Everyone had this extremely coifed straight hair, and I did not want to belong to the crowd of look-alike hairstyles,” adds Nima. But that crowd of the Jill-come-latelys is rapidly thinning.
Girls like Usha Yonzan, a first year Bachelor’s student, who are gifted with natural curls, have made their peace with Mother Nature for not endowing them with the straight and the narrow, and are now even singing her praises. Yonzan has grown her curls long and recently found the right cut for them as well. “Once I wished for straight hair and did not give much priority to my hair, but now I have grown it long and I regularly condition it,” says Yonzan.
For Sandra Pun, hair stylist at Beauty Club S, who also dons loose curls, curls are a refreshing trend. Perhaps this expert’s take on the trend could serve as the final word for those of you still hedging your bets as regards curls: “Around 2005, the young girls who poured into my club, even those with beautiful curls, would want their hair done straight. Now it’s the other way round. Girls with straight hair want to go frizzy,” says Sandra.
So, if you are thinking of getting this laidback hair style, do know its different patterns. And for those of you who want to maintain your natural curls- -first, get to know your curls.
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