By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
April 29, 2004
Even if you don’t know much about “Friends,” chances are you remember “The Rachel.”
Jennifer Aniston’s hair took on a life of its own a few episodes into the show’s debut season, when her character showed up with a striking new hairstyle: Gone were her long, semicurly locks. In their place was a fluffy, layered ‘do — a modified shag.
While none of the characters commented on her new look, the rest of America definitely noticed. Like Audrey Hepburn, Mia Farrow, Farrah Fawcett and Dorothy Hamill before her, Aniston had a hairstyle every woman in America suddenly wanted — in this case, a versatile but simple long layered cut with the front angled a little below the chin.
When women went to their stylists and requested the Rachel, hair stylists knew exactly what they meant.
“I was working in Los Angeles in the mid-’90s at a small salon that catered to a lot of society women,” says stylist Angelo Diaz. “You’d be surprised at how many of them came in wanting the Rachel. I talked some of them out of it because I didn’t think it would be a flattering look for them. Like hot pants and miniskirts, it was a look that was better suited for girls and younger women.”
Laughing, he added, “It wasn’t really that much different from Florence Henderson or David Cassidy’s hair in the 1970s. I think Jennifer Aniston was just so cute everyone wanted to look like her. You can’t get her face, but you can sort of get her hair.”
Created by Chris McMillan — who would later style Aniston’s hair for her wedding day — the style was based around a series of beveled angles that framed Aniston’s baby face. Gel and volumizer gave it an added lift at the top of her head.
Female fans persisted in emulating the cutest hairstyle of the cutest “Friend” — she and hubby Brad Pitt grace the cover of People magazine’s new list of ”The 50 Most Beautiful People in the World 2004” — even as Aniston moved on. She changed in baby steps, first growing her hair into a longer, sleeker version of the Rachel. Then Aniston — who would later mock the frenzy on “Saturday Night Live” — tried to distance herself further from the look that threatened to take over her career by growing her hair even longer, while augmenting it with extensions. She wore her hair long and stick straight. She even cut it into a short and sassy bob, which she quickly grew out. She let it go wavy. She adorned it with little pins and barrettes.
But the legend of the Rachel lives on, in part, perhaps, because it had so little competition on a show that spawned few other notable fashion or beauty trends. Courteney Cox Arquette (Monica) and Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe) have had stylish ‘dos, but all were eclipsed by the phenomenon that was the Rachel.
Long before “Friends,” we saw a jeans and T-shirt clad Cox Arquette sporting a short pixie cut in a music video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.” But she opted for a more glamorous look on “Friends.” After the first season’s bangs and shoulder-length cut, Cox Arquette updated her look almost every year. There was the blunt modified bob with a side part; the gorgeous wavy sea of brown hair and the mane of jet-black hair that seems to have inspired Demi Moore.
Moore, in fact, was referenced in an episode that set up Monica’s hairstyle change. (The writers must’ve gotten flak for not addressing Aniston’s hair early on.) Turning to Phoebe to style her hair, Monica was horrified that her loopy buddy mistook her request for a cut like Demi Moore (a la “Ghost”) for Dudley Moore (circa “10”).
As for Phoebe, her hair went from long, naturally blond (or as natural as it gets in Hollywood, anyway) and curly in the early years to long, peroxide blond and ironed straight today. Kudrow, keeps her hair short now that she has a young child, has said the show’s stylists use extensions to keep Phoebe’s hair long.
But when all’s said and done, “Friends” style can still be summarized in two words. Long live … “the Rachel.”
