When Girl Gaga and Miley Cyrus stepped out for the 2025 Grammys, they each had hanging new hairstyles.
Each artists wore their lengthy hair straight with a center half, and each of them had bangs. Each of them additionally had brief aspect items that had been reduce proper round chin size. Although Gaga’s hair was jet black and Cyrus’ was gentle brown with blonde highlights, their cuts had been very related. Billie Eilish even had a model of the fashion on Grammys night time, sporting her black hair tied again in a ponytail but in addition rocking uneven face-framing aspect items.
In a short time, their new fashion made waves on social media with many individuals highlighting the fashion as a “jellyfish haircut.” Nevertheless, they had been really rocking the “hime haircut,” which is an analogous fashion to a jellyfish reduce.
The jellyfish reduce additionally sees a drastically shorter layer, however it’s reduce all the best way across the head, whereas the hime reduce solely has the entrance items reduce. With the jellyfish fashion, the highest layer is usually curled below with the underside layer flipped out to imitate the look of a jellyfish. A hime reduce is historically worn straight and blunt.
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Cher famously had this haircut within the Nineteen Sixties, sporting her lengthy black hair straight within the again and with brief blunt bangs within the entrance with uneven aspect items. She rocked this fashion within the late Nineteen Sixties for a time period. The singer was the poster little one for the fashion when it got here again within the early 2020s, the place it blew up on TikTok.
The hime haircut — pronounced hee-may — dates again to the Heian interval (794-1185), when noblewomen would develop their hair out and “preserve particular, ritualistic trims,” says Japanese hairstylist Taka Tokuyama, who owns the Tokuyama Salon in New York with two areas. Hime interprets to princess, which is why this haircut is derived from that of noblewomen.
“One in all these conventional cuts was the amasogi, a straight reduce at shoulder size, and the binsogi, the place aspect locks had been trimmed across the age of 20 in a coming-of-age ceremony,” he explains. “Over time, the fashion grew to become related to aristocracy, and in fashionable occasions, it has been popularized by way of J-pop idols, anime characters, and Harajuku avenue vogue.”
Tokuyama notes that the hime reduce and the jellyfish reduce are related, however the hime is usually extra blunt and face-framing, whereas the jellyfish is a contemporary “layered tackle the hime reduce.”
“It consists of a blunt, brief bob or bowl-cut high layer, with lengthy, flowing layers beneath, resembling the form of a jellyfish. This fashion presents extra motion and softness in comparison with the structured hime reduce, making it really feel extra modern and versatile,” he tells PEOPLE.
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The hime — which works finest on naturally straight hair however also can work on curly textures — has come out and in of vogue many occasions through the years and is once more on the rise. Tokuyama credit its present rise to Ok-pop, with idols like Lisa from Blackpink rocking the haircut. He additionally factors to “various” aesthetics bringing the haircut into the mainstream, calling out goth, cyberpunk and anime as traits that lend themselves to this fashion.
With the haircut shortly on the rise, Tokuyama would not need anybody to draw back from making an attempt out this fashion, irrespective of who you might be or the place you come from. An important half is appreciating the historical past.
“Whereas it has deep cultural roots in Japan, hairstyles are a type of self-expression, and anybody can put on a hime reduce no matter their background,” he says. “That mentioned, if somebody is anxious about cultural appropriation, it’s price understanding and appreciating the historical past behind the fashion reasonably than sporting it simply as a fleeting development. The hime reduce has developed past its noble origins and is now a worldwide vogue assertion embraced by numerous subcultures and fashion-forward people.”
