Put a Crimp in It

As a girl in Albany, Ga., in the early 2000s, Jessica Cruel liked to while away her Saturdays people-watching, sharing gossip and having her hair styled at her local salon. “You would go in at 10 and wouldn’t leave until 5,” said Ms. Cruel, the editor in chief of Allure magazine.

Time was no object for the salon’s many regulars who hoped to achieve the undulant “do” known as the Marcel wave, an artfully constructed, high-polish style that has surfaced time and again since Josephine Baker popularized it in the early 1920s.

Widely adopted by Black women, the look was resurrected in the 1990s by a constellation of hip-hop stars, Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown notable among them. Now the Marcel has reared its glossy head once more — a look that, while labor-intensive, seems on the cusp of mainstreaming.

“I’ve been noticing that there has been a resurgence of that traditional mousse, comb-and-clip style,” Ms. Cruel said, ascribing its return in part to an unabated fascination with ’90s trends and, not less, its renewed popularity on the runways and red carpets. The style, invented in the 1870s by the Parisian Francois Marcel Grateau, who achieved it with hot curling tongs, can be the crowning touch on bias-cut dresses reminiscent of the ’20s and ’30s. It can simultaneously take an edge off some of the more aggressively tailored looks on the runways this year.

Interpretations vary from highly lacquered, head-hugging waves to looser versions that fan out at the chin or tumble toward the shoulders, the wave sometimes accented with kiss curls at the hairline. Marcel waves are generally serpentine in form and created with a heat iron. But the term is sometimes used interchangeably with finger waves, which usually refers to a softer, looser wave that can be molded by hand and set with a heat lamp or diffuser.

Zendaya, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and Alexa Demie of “Euphoria” have all embraced finger waves, showing them off on the red carpet. Halle Berry wore a softly cascading version at the Oscars last month, and Demi Lovato worked a short, wet-look Marcel at the pre-Grammy gala in February.

The Marcel’s elaborate formality can be part of the draw. “When you see it, you know there is a technique to it,” said the hair stylist Guido Palau, who has revisited Marcel waves more than once in recent years. “It’s like when you see a beautiful embroidered dress. You know that this is a craft, that talent and time were put into it.”

When Mr. Palau gave the Jazz Age look a Gothic twist on Marc Jacobs’s runway in 2016 — Lady Gaga memorably paraded it — he had to train his team to master its intricacies. Late last month Mr. Palau returned to Marcelling for the 2023 Dior pre-fall show in Mumbai, India.

The look can seem subversive, he said, projecting an audacious femininity. It is a rule-breaker, flying in the face of the unfussy bed head and other low-maintenance styles that have dominated beauty culture of late.

The renewed popularity of Marcel waves reflects a notable aesthetic shift. “The era of insouciance has a passed,” said Fabrice Gili, the creative director at the Frédéric Fekkai salon. “People are thinking beyond conventional beauty and trying to project a bit of a stronger look.”

And now, after lockdowns, they are returning to salons. “We were so D.I.Y. for a while,” said Stephanie Bong, the editorial director of Behind the Chair, a trade publication for salon professionals. “But we are exiting the fun, beachy wave era and putting the heating iron back into stylist’s hands. The ‘done’ look is cool again.”

The style is most easily created on short wavy hair, but it can be adapted to varying textures, densities and lengths. “It can give a relatively lived-in look or project a sleek, old Hollywood glamour,” Ms. Bong said.

Adriano Cattide, the creative director at the Drawing Room, a popular salon in SoHo, is more cautious. “Medium to fine textured hair certainly can work, but short, naturally wavy hair definitely helps,” he said. “When the hair is too thick, the style becomes harder to pull off.” Mr. Cattide may work with an iron to give fine, straight hair a bouncy base before attempting the more rigid waves that are a bit like raffia to the touch.

Clients at the Drawing Room tend to request waves spontaneously. “They may just tell us, ‘I’m going out tonight, and I want to do something fun and fresh,’” said Tyler Hearn, the manager of the salon. The look is a hit with adventurous patrons of varying races and ethnicities.

Few are as brashly confident as SF Roth, a 23-year-old artist who stopped in last week hoping to add a little novelty to her “wolf” cut, a contemporary hybrid of the shag and mullet. There, she placed herself in Mr. Cattide’s hands. “You have to commit,” she said. “This is not a casual thing.”

Ms. Roth has the kind of wavy, fine-to-medium hair that lends itself to stiffly lacquered waves fitted like a cap to her head. She expressed no qualms when Mr. Cattide told her that he planned to go with something edgy or, as he put it, “very clean and structured on top, messier in back.”

He started with a deep side part, brushing industrial strength gel outward from the roots, then pinching the hair with his fingers to create S-curves, teasing them in alternating directions with a rattail comb. He finished the look with tendrils snaking along Ms. Roth’s temples and cheeks, each an attenuated variation on the classic kiss curl.

“He is sculpting,” Ms. Roth said, appraising her reflection as the work progressed. “I feel like a sea creature.”

She thought she might show off the “do” at dinner with friends that evening, wearing it with a long black skirt and cropped white tank top — “a mix of elegance and street punk,” she said. It was by no means a look she planned to reserve for a special occasions.

“I like its energy,” she said. “Event or no event, if I am feeling this, I’ll wear it.”