This Nostalgic '90s Hair Accessory Just Got The Chanel Treatment At PFW

Paris Fashion Week might be coming to a close, but it’s going out on a high note. For the extravagant week’s final show day, celebrities, industry giants, and the city’s most sartorially-inclined citizens came out for the Chanel F/W ‘22 ready-to-wear show. Sporting hyper-trendy hairstyles and ensembles that double as street-style photographer bait, the guests trickled into the show which was an homage to tweed, a signature Chanel fabric and motif. But as is the case with the best fashion shows, it’s not necessarily all about fashion. The presentation’s beauty moments are both subtle and striking — especially the Chanel hair barrettes adding a distinctly vintage flair to long side-parts storming up and down the runway. While barrettes — not unlike pigtails, hair ribbons, and headbands — are often eschewed for fear of looking “childish”, the Chanel show proves they spell out nothing but pure sophistication.

Paired with the classic tweed garments, the barrettes (and the sleek, straight hairstyles they held back) do lend a vaguely academic aesthetic, but not nearly so much as to look overtly juvenile — it’s a youthful look. Eagle-eyed observes will notice the barrettes and pins are fashioned to look like enamel-and-gemstone clusters, buttons, hearts, and flowers (including what looks like the trademark Chanel camellia), some of which emblazoned with the legendary interlocking CC logo.

While the side-swept parts and hair clips were a common thread through many of the looks, it’s worth mentioning that it wasn’t the only look featured. Models also wore unadorned center and side parts, TWAs, razor-cut pageboys, straight-back braids, and even a gloriously curly wolf cut that adds so much personality to an otherwise very structured, buttoned-up outfit.

An invitation to a Chanel show is always a coveted one, and the guests at this presentation — which included Venus Williams, Soo Joo Park, Georgia May Jagger, and Caroline de Maigret — pulled out all the stops for the highly scrutinized event.

While it’s always a little bittersweet when Fashion Month finally ends — the nonstop influx of celebrity arrivals, singular street style moments, and, of course, the collections themselves are always so inspiring — now’s the time to mix and match favorites from each to make them your own. And in the case of Chanel’s ultra-luxury barrettes, it’s so simple, too. Fashion houses’ costume jewelry and hair accessories have long been a (slightly) more accessible point of entry, meaning you can always cop a Chanel-branded barrette for much less than you would anything else, or you can take the idea and apply it to pieces already in your accessory collection.

Plus, if you happen to have spare buttons on hand, either featuring a designer logo or otherwise, you’re just 30 minutes and a some hot glue away from the super-stylish hair clips of dreams.