Backstage at Christian Siriano's Spring/Summer 2027 show during New York Fashion Week this September, hairstylist Lacy Redway pulled out a crimping iron for the first time in years. She called the result an "enchanted crimp" — a handful of zigzag sections woven through hair she had already smoothed to a glass-like shine with TRESemmé's A-List Bonding Oil. It was not the all-over, straight-out-of-1998 texture anyone over thirty-five remembers from a school dance. Sparse and deliberate instead, it was — according to nearly every stylist working fashion month this year — exactly where hair is heading for fall.
Siriano's show wasn't the only one. At Christian Cowan, hairstylist Justine Marjan wove crimped pieces into low ponytails and face-framing sections, then blended the sharp zigzag with irregular flat-iron waves and the brand's Dry Texturizing Spray so the texture read as undone rather than time-warped. Over at Area, Joey George went further, placing structural crimps around the eyes and chin to sharpen bone structure against a collection built from unconventional materials. Weeks earlier, at CHET LO, hairstylist Anna Cofone had already tested the idea, threading crimped sections through otherwise polished styles in a way one outlet called architectural rather than throwback. Three shows, three different techniques, one shared instinct: crimping isn't a costume anymore. It's a texture choice, and it's landing on real heads well before the clothes it accompanied ever reach a store.
This Isn't the Crimp You Remember
Nobody backstage was doing the full root-to-end zigzag from 1998 — and you shouldn't either, not if you want to leave the house without someone assuming you raided a costume box.
What's actually happening is more restrained. After roughly a decade of glossy blowouts, expensive-looking sleek brunettes, and buns so smooth they photograph like glass, hair is getting expressive again — sculptural updos, visible layers, texture you're meant to notice rather than iron away. Crimping fits neatly into that shift because it does something a beach wave or a loose curl can't: it fakes density. A few crimped sections tucked under smooth top layers add lift at the crown without a single extension. That's precisely why finer-haired people are the ones actually adopting this off the runway, not just watching it from the front row. Volume, generally, is having a moment again after years of hair that mostly wanted to lie flat, and crimping is one of the few tools that manufactures it without a single hot roller in sight.
From Runway Prop to Search Term in Days
The gap between a runway idea and something people actually try used to take months to close. Not this time. TikTok's own discovery page for crimped hair had already bundled backstage photos from Siriano's and Cowan's shows alongside decade-old zigzag tutorials and softer, modern versions within about two weeks of the shows wrapping — proof this crossed from fashion-month idea to search term faster than most runway looks manage. It landed at almost the same moment fashion coverage was calling baby bangs fall's other most polarizing hair call, and the pairing isn't really a coincidence. After years of hair that mostly wanted to disappear into a glossy blowout, both trends reward hair that announces itself instead. Baby bangs do it at the front. Crimping, meanwhile, does it in whatever sections you choose. Neither one is subtle, and neither one is trying to be.
The Kit Fashion Month Actually Used
Three products keep showing up whenever stylists talk about doing this without frying anyone's hair. Reach for a ceramic-plate crimping iron over whatever metal one has been sitting in a drawer since 2004 — the MBHAIR Ceramic Crimper Iron, priced around $20 on Amazon, is the one that got name-checked after Redway's look went viral, and it's a reasonable place to start if you don't already own one. Ceramic plates distribute heat more evenly than the old aluminum kind, which matters more here than on a flat iron: a crimper clamps the same strand for several seconds at a stretch, so an uneven hot spot leaves a visible, brittle crease instead of just a slightly-off wave.
The second is prep, and it's not optional. Color Wow's Xtra Large Bombshell Volumizer (about $28 for the full 6.7-ounce bottle) goes on damp roots before blow-drying, because a crimper adds shape, not lift — hair that's already flat going in will just come out flat with a wave pattern stamped on top of it. The third is protection: CHI's 44 Iron Guard Thermal Protection Spray, roughly $28 for the 8-ounce size or $8 for a 2-ounce travel bottle, is worth the extra step precisely because crimping holds heat against a strand longer than a flat iron pass does. Skimp on that step with a $9 no-name protectant, though, and you'll notice the damage by the second wash, not the second year.
How to Actually Do It at Home
The technique fashion month's stylists used translates fine to a bathroom counter, provided you resist the urge to crimp everything. Five steps get you there, in roughly the time it already takes to blow-dry your hair:
- Work the volumizer into damp roots, then blow-dry hair mostly straight.
- Section off only the pieces you actually want textured — two face-framing pieces, a narrow strip at the crown, or just the last three inches of hair, depending on how bold you're going.
- Mist each section with heat protectant before it touches the plates. This is the step people skipped in 2004, and it's the reason so many of us remember crimped hair as damaged hair.
- Clamp one- to two-inch sections for about eight seconds each, starting at the mid-length rather than the root so the crimp doesn't read as a helmet.
- Run your fingers — not a brush — through the finished sections to soften the zigzag into something closer to a wave, and leave the rest of your hair untouched.
Keep the rest of the look quiet while you're at it. Clean skin, minimal jewelry, an outfit that isn't also shouting for attention — the texture only reads as intentional when it's the one loud thing in the room.
Who This Actually Flatters — and Who Should Ease In
If your hair is fine and straight, this is the easiest heat-styling upgrade to make this fall — it solves the exact problem, flatness, that most volumizing sprays only half fix. Waves and curls can use it too, mostly to add definition to the pieces closest to the face rather than to change the overall pattern. The catch: if your hair is fine and recently bleached, or has been through more than one round of color this year, repeated heat this close to the scalp is where breakage actually starts, and no amount of glossing serum fixes a snapped strand. If that's you, test on a single small section first, stretch the days between sessions, and consider asking your colorist whether a gloss or bond treatment is due before you add another heat pass to the rotation.
Office Days Versus Going-Out Nights
Hidden crimps — a couple of sections underneath the top layer, invisible until the wind catches them — work fine for a desk job, adding volume without announcing themselves. By contrast, structural, face-framing crimps, the kind Joey George put on the Area runway, are better saved for after 6 p.m., when a slightly rebellious hair moment reads as intentional rather than accidental. Choose based on how much attention you actually want your hair pulling that day, not on some rule about what's "appropriate" — there isn't one here.
By the time these Spring/Summer 2027 clothes actually land in stores, the crimping iron will likely have moved off the fashion-month backstage table and onto a shelf next to your flat iron and your favorite dry shampoo. For a texture most of us swore off around the time flip phones went out of style, that's a surprisingly easy thing to admit.