Trust Zendaya To Start Paris Couture Week With A Bang — A Micro-Bang, That Is

Nearly a full month into 2024, and there was only one thing left to check off the list: a proper Zendaya sighting in the new year. The award-winning star has been playing things pretty low-key on social media, typically preferring to post only about her upcoming acting projects. But trust the Paris Haute Couture Week Spring/Summer 2024 fashion shows to be the thing to draw the Euphoria lead out into public — and in her coolest-ever runway-side hairstyle, it must be said. Zendaya’s short bangs at the Schiaparelli presentation might be the first thing about her aesthetic-shifting look that you notice, but give it a few more seconds and realize that this is one of the most major departures she’s made from her usual sense of beauty style. Unsurprisingly, her willingness to take creative risks and go big paid off.

Zendaya’s long, mahogany wig at the fashion show is a stark change up in length, shape and color. Typically, the A-lister wears her own hair in blowouts, braids, or her natural curls, but it’s almost always a warmer, lighter shade, closer to the honey-brown end of the spectrum. Though the bangs are cropped well above her thinned-out eyebrows — they’re not nearly as fluffy as usual, contributing to the futuristic appeal — the pieces they connect to around her face aren’t tapered, but instead immediately flow into long, straight strands.

It’s somewhat similar to the “Hime cut”, a popular look in Japan and the U.S. that features prominent bangs with longer pieces cut bluntly beneath them. Zendaya’s version isn’t layered, but it shares the same stark structure.

Even Zendaya’s makeup is different from her 2023 ways, trading in dewy finishes and shimmery, bronzey eyes for matte counterparts and neutral-to-cool tones. It’s bold, mature, futuristic, and a wonderful reminder of her versatility. And as if that weren’t enough, she even had the best-dressed Euphoria mini-reunion ever, sitting next to co-star and friend Hunter Schafer in the front row.

It’s unclear exactly which beauty professionals Zendaya turned to for such a major look, but they might have just created the single coolest hair-makeup combination of the year — not so far, but 2024 as a whole. What could ever top this?