疫情居家云相见，刘海也成新爆款

As our contact with the outside world shrinks to the size of a screen, once-private things have been pushed to the fore.

如今，我们与外界的联系缩小至一块小小的屏幕上，曾经很私人的事也从幕后来到了台前。

Our bookshelves, formerly unseen by our co-workers, have become pregnant with meaning. Our tired faces, once optimised for the workplace with concealer and a fancy neckline, are beginning to crack after one too many Zoom meetings. For those of us working from home, headshots are the new hemlines.

家里同事从未见过的书架，拥有了全新的意义。以前上班时，我们用遮瑕膏和花哨的领口来修饰疲惫的面容；而现在，面对接连不断的Zoom会议，我们的倦容一览无余。对于我们这些居家办公的人来说，头像已经取代裙摆，成为个人职场形象的关键。

Then there is our hair: our rubbish, 10-week too-long hair that we can’t really improve without breaking the law – or at least a headband. 

然后就是发型：我们杂乱的，至少10周没修剪过的发型——不违反隔离规定，我们无法去理发店，只好先戴上发带。

In the past few months, the word haircut has seen a formidable 1,379% increase in Google searches compared with 2019. And of those Google searches, “fringe” is the top hit for women. This will come as a surprise to no one. After all, the dos and don’ts of trimming your own “lockdown bangs” have been pored over everywhere. For those interested, Van Ness, who cut his own bangs last week, offers two good pieces of advice: “Try to not cut it wider than the outside of your brows” and only do it “if it makes you feel more at peace”.

在近几个月的谷歌搜索量中，“发型”一词与去年相比竟上涨了1379%。其中，“刘海”是女性检索次数最多的关键词。这也是人们预料之中的事，毕竟，疫情期间，刘海的修理指南在网上随处可见。上周刚给自己剪了刘海的万·内斯，给有同样想法的人提出了两条好建议：“尽量不要把刘海剪得比眉毛两端宽”，且“在确定刘海不会让你更焦躁的情况下“再动手。

Like so many successful things in 2020, the lockdown fringe began on social media and, also like so many things, was consolidated in Britain by the TV adaptation of Normal People.

和众多2020年走红之物一样，隔离期刘海兴起于社交网络。同样，也通过电视剧《普通人》火遍英国。

Connell’s silver chain might have spawned its own social media account and be “comparable to what James Dean did for the simple white T-shirt” (according to its costume designer), but so, too, has Marianne’s evolving fringe, which came with its own story arc – choppy when young, flourishing during her sexual prime, and so on – and now its own Instagram account, @Mariannesbangs, with 5,000 followers and counting. 

康奈尔的银链可能已经衍生出了自己的社交媒体账户，而且（据其服装设计师所说）“和詹姆斯·迪恩穿一件简单白T的效果差不多”。同样，玛丽安的刘海也在不断变化——即随着故事线的发展而改变——年轻时刘海杂乱不一，人物进入成熟期刘海也随之变得成熟等。现在它自己的Instagram账号@玛丽安刘海（@Mariannesbangs）拥有5000名粉丝，且不断增加。

注：康奈尔（Connell）和玛丽安（Marianne)是英剧《普通人》中的主要角色。

Still, a sharp, face-framing fringe on Zoom has become yet another impossible beauty standard to add to the list, and one that reflects self-improvement over pandemic restriction. While Bella Hadid cut hers in lockdown to match Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday with surprising deftness, and Anna Wintour seems to have a live-in hairdresser, it appears deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has chosen not to touch hers; in her last television appearance on The Andrew Marr show, she had swept it artfully to one side.

尽管在Zoom会议中，一款干净利落又能衬托脸型的刘海已经成为了又一个难以实现的美貌标准，却也反映出人们在受到疫情限制时的自我美化。例如，贝拉·哈迪德娴熟地把自己的刘海剪成和奥黛丽·赫本在《罗马假日》中一样的造型；安娜·温图尔更换刘海造型的频率简直就像家里住着一位美发师；英国工党副主席安吉拉·雷纳看起来并不打算改变自己的刘海——上一次在安德鲁·马尔的节目露面时，她巧妙地把刘海拨到了一边。

If hair has become a talking point of lockdown – and further proof that personal grooming is key to our welfare regardless of what is happening in the outside world (the re-opening of beauty salons in Italy this month allegedly outranked restaurants and shops in demand) –

then DIY fringe cuts are a distillation of this new normal.Lengths vary, but the sentiment remains – a good fringe is proof that the wheels of professionalism are working nicely, even if they are coming off.

如果发型已经成为了居家隔离期间的一个话题，这也就进一步证明，无论外面的世界正在发生什么，个人形象都是我们幸福生活的关键。（据称，意大利本月重新开张的美容院供不应求，客流量远超餐馆和商店。）其中，DIY刘海就是这种新常态的精华。虽然刘海的长度各不相同，但人们的态度是不变的——一个精心修剪的刘海体现了人们还在进行自我管理，即使受到疫情影响，专业服务基本处于停滞状态。

“It’s actually more about [change], about wanting to feel normal, or to appear normal to the outside world,” says George Northwood, the fashion media’s go-to hairstylist. “I get that now is a time to experiment, and while I probably wouldn’t suggest cutting your hair – there are things you can do, with scarves and hairbands, which will extend the need – I understand this is about more than just a cut,” he says. 

时尚媒体的首席发型师乔治·诺斯伍德说：“事实上，DIY刘海更多的是为了‘改变’，为了想要感觉和平常一样，或在外界面前显得和平常一样。我理解现在正是尝试的时候，虽然我可能不会建议你剪头发，但你可以试试别的，比如用围巾和发带，这对造型的要求更高——我知道这件事的意义远大于一次理发。”

This wasn’t always the case. In the halcyon days of March, we didn’t know when things would end; a haircut was the last thing on our minds. At least for women. Clipper sales are up over 200%, which suggests that men have been trimming their beards and hair for weeks. But as yet there are no available figures on whether the same is true for hairdressing scissors.

但情况并非总是如此。在宅家的三月里，我们不知道疫情何时会结束。至少对女人来说，理发是我们最不想做的事情。而男士们已经修剪了好几个星期的胡须和头发，导致这段时间剃刀的销量翻了两倍。但目前还没有数据表明美发剪存在同样的情况。

We’re now 10 weeks into lockdown and well past the sweet spot of a recommended trim – “which is absolutely six to eight weeks”, according to Northwood, the man who coined and cultivated The Alexa (Chung) and The Claudia (Winkelman). As for the fringe, “it generally has a four-week shelf life. So if you went into lockdown with one, chances are you will have given yourself one trim already”. Northwood has been guiding clients such as Winkelman into cutting hers at home, using clips, point cutting and texturising scissors, videos of which have been uploaded on to social media. He says most of his work right now is on YouTube.

我们现在已经居家隔离10周了，早就错过了最佳的剪发时间——按照诺斯伍德的话来说，应当是6到8周（修剪一次头发）。诺斯伍德曾亲手设计并保养艾里珊·钟和克劳迪娅·温科曼的发型。至于刘海，他说，“刘海通常有四周的‘保质期’。如果隔离开始时你有刘海，很有可能你已经给自己剪过一次了。”诺斯伍德现在一直在通过视频指导像温科曼这样的客户，在家用发夹、点剪和牙剪来修剪自己的头发。这些教学视频也都被上传至社交媒体。诺斯伍德表示，他的大部分教学视频现在都能在YouTube上看到。

“Cutting your hair now is mostly born out of necessity, and yes definitely a way to feel like you are in control, that you are not losing yourself,” says Rachael Gibson, a hair historian. To many people, the thought of going to a hair salon represents a return to normality after a long, destabilising period – in lieu of this, cutting our hair is as close as we can get.

研究发型变迁的历史学家家雷切尔·吉普森表示：“如今，理发基本已经成为生活必需，它能让你感到一切尽在掌控之中，你没有迷失自我。”对很多人来说，在经历了漫长且动荡不安的疫情后，去美发店代表了正常生活秩序的回归——虽然这在现在还无法实现，但修剪一下我们的头发，已经是我们目前能做到的极致了。

Recent history, Gibson says, shows “certainly a correlation” between changes in grooming and crises. During the Great Depression, for example, cosmetic sales initially dipped in the US, though by 1939 they were up 35%. When the British economy waned in 2008 after the financial crisis, nail polish sales went up 65%. And in the early 00s, Leonard Lauder, chairman of the board of Estée Lauder, coined the term Lipstick Index, which suggested that in leaner times, women turn their buying power towards smaller luxury items such as lipstick to get their fix.

吉普森说，近代历史表明，人们的打扮与国家危机“密不可分”。例如，在经济大萧条时期，美国的化妆品销售量起初有所下降，但到1939年上升了35%。2008年金融危机后，英国经济衰退，指甲油销售额却增长了65%。20世纪初，雅诗兰黛董事会主席伦纳德·兰黛创造了“口红指数”一词。这表明在经济不景气时期，女性消费者会转向购买口红等小件的奢侈品，从而获得满足。

In these screen-focused times, and with mask-wearing soon possibly to be mandatory, could we be on the cusp of a Fringe Index?

在疫情下的“屏幕”时代，戴口罩也马上要成为强制性措施，这是否意味着我们也将迎来“刘海指数”？

There is something subtler at play, too, particularly when you consider the semantics of how politicians dress. Boris Johnson’s unkempt hair might be a bid to identify with the proletariat, but just makes him look even more posh. By contrast, that Rayner is trying to style her grown-out fringe rather than look shambolic gives her an air of relatability. Liam Allmark, a hair stylist at Bristol’s Kings & Queens Hair Salon, compares her hair to Brigitte Bardot’s and says if you can’t grow your fringe out, “you could sweep it to one side while it gets long enough to go for [this cheekbone-length fringe]”. 

发型还包含一些精巧细思，尤其是考虑到政客们的“穿衣哲学”。英国首相约翰逊蓬乱的头发或许是想表达他对无产阶级的认同，却刚好让他看起来更加时髦。相反，英国工党副主席雷纳则把她长长了的刘海认真打理，而不是任由它乱糟糟的，这让她看起来更可靠。英国布里斯托“国王&皇后”美发店的发型师利亚姆·奥尔马克认为，雷纳的发型和碧姬·芭杜（法国著名性感女星）的类似。他表示，如果你不能把刘海留长，“你可以把它拨到一边，等它长到一定长度时尝试颧骨刘海。”

The pandemic has plunged us into deep uncertainty. The twist, says Northwood, is that people are also after fringes when salons re-open in July. “It seems that cutting your hair is one thing, but focusing on the fringe is more like a mood change, something that marks a new beginning.”

疫情使我们陷入了一种深度的不确定性中。诺斯伍德说，有趣的是，等美发店七月恢复营业，人们还是会追求刘海造型。“看起来，理发是一回事，把注意力放在刘海则更象征一种心情的转换，标志新的开始。”