There was a wonderful tweet back on pre-X Twitter by the cultural critic Jasmine Sanders that read, basically, as follows: when white women dye their hair a certain shade, they’re sending a distress signal not unlike a squid emitting ink. If that insight holds true, as, anecdotally, I’ve observed that it does – brunette is meant to flag “serious”, red means “bombshell”, and bleach blonde can but does not always mean “crisis” – then what do we make of Timothée Chalamet showing up at the New York premiere of A Complete Unknown with honey-blonde bangs? Witness:
The advent of a blond Chalamet has been rumored for years, so I was sceptical at first when a Vogue colleague breathlessly informed us of the actor’s newly flaxen locks via Slack. But lo and behold, it’s real. (Even if the bangs are possibly clip-ons? Jury’s out.) Then, his true motives became clear: Chalamet was cosplaying as Bob Dylan at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Method dressing is, indeed, alive and well, it seems:
I know bleached blond-ness on men can occasionally signify inner turmoil, if not the rampant Kenergy of last summer (which, like all memes, has inevitably grown stagnant). On Chalamet, though, I think this hair transformation is a relatively low-effort and painless way to shift the vibe from the surly, 1960s Dylan that he plays in A Complete Unknown, while still paying homage to the icon.
We’ll need more angles to know for sure, but is Chalamet… kind of pulling off caramel tresses? And is his army of doppelgangers ready to really commit to the bit?
