“I have an idea,” the stylist said, stepping back from me in that particular posture of hairdressers that makes them look as if their scissors are thinking. “Will you let me do what I want?”

It was 1995, and I was 13 years old, sitting among the slick black capes and the scent of Paul Mitchell’s Awapuhi Shampoo at the local mall salon in St. Louis. My hair had always been a problem. It was the texture of a baby’s and refused to grow past my shoulders. It was what Madeleine L’Engle referred to as “hair-colored hair.” It held neither barrettes nor ponytails, and in the morning, it looked as if secretive mice had made nests in it. I had been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me, “Will you let me do what I want?” in regard to my hair. When I emerged from the cloud of spritz and snipping, I saw myself for what seemed like the first time—a clean sweep of bangs across the forehead, elfish points over the ears, a miraculously bare neck. I had found my “look.”

With one or two brief forays into the world of the bob, which made me resemble a sentient mushroom in a ’70s psychedelic cartoon, I have kept a pixie for the past two decades. This loyalty means I can generally feel when a new rush of short cuts is coming on: Last time, it was when I gazed upon Kate Gosselin and understood that stylists would be attempting to give me a “reality porcupine” until her 15 minutes were up. This time around, I saw Beyoncé posing in the mirror on her Instagram with her head at a careful tilt and wheat-colored sideburns angling down her cheekbones. It was 2013, and I thought, It might take a year or two, but it’s coming.

The appearance of the so-called Buzz Cut Angels at the Victoria’s Secret show in 2016—when black models Jourdana Phillips, Herieth Paul, and Riccardo Tisci–favorite Maria Borges wore their hair shorn and natural, without extensions—solidified the premonition. Kristen Stewart pledging allegiance to a pair of clippers and a bucket of bleach last spring all but confirmed it.

Short hair never seemed especially political to me before, but it feels political now, with its subversion of fascist and skinhead overtones. Even a classic pixie feels newly heavy with connotation—so light on the head, so opposed to something more predictable and barrel-curled. “It’s just not the time for that,” Orlando Pita said of the runway’s more familiar long layers and requisite volume, which were deliberately missing backstage at Tom Ford’s Spring show. With the designer’s blessing, Pita pinned models’ hair—including Gigi Hadid’s bombshell waves—into high-and-tight pseudo-chops instead, to avoid the need for a “hairdo” entirely.