From the ultra-textured butterfly cut to the gravity-defying airy bob, today’s haircut trends are all telling a similar story: Va-va-voom volume is back in style. And now a new look is lending itself to the more-is-more movement. The frame cut, which, as the name implies, flatters and frames the face while adding texture, volume, and movement to the hair. But what really sets this style apart is its Zoom-camera friendliness.
“I would notice when Madelaine [Petsch] was filming Riverdale, her hair was so long—there were some frames wherein the hair would just keep going,” celebrity hairstylist Marc Mena, who coined the term, tells Glamour of the inspiration behind the cut. “I noticed that with a lot of actresses, their hair was so long that they had to pull away to get the whole hair in the frame.”
Mena realized that the same dilemma would apply to nonactors’ hair on Zoom and Facetime calls too. Hence the frame’s new reign among contemporary haircut trends. “People are Zooming and Facetiming more and more—that’s never going away,” says Mena. “And this cut frames your face while you’re on these calls, so you can feel confident on camera.”
Plus, people are simply tired of the monotony that can come with having superlong hair. “When your hair is very long, it can be hard to try out trendy hairstyles,” he says. “It can be hard to do that Kim Kardashian ’90s-inspired updo or past-shoulder-length flippy Cindy Crawford look. People are starting to go shorter and shorter because it’s more versatile.”
A-listers are catching on to the frame’s vast benefits already: Khloé Kardashian, Zendaya, Kaia Gerber, Mindy Kaling, and Zoey Deutsch have all been spotted sporting variations of the cut in recent months. “The frame is good for every age and every hair color,” says Mena, noting that its length, while difficult to define, is a major bonus: It’s extremely adaptable in terms of ways to wear it, and although it looks chic, it’s actually easy to style.
