Sadie Sink’s copper waves have a fanbase all of their own. Throughout Sink’s ascension – from her turn as Max in Stranger Things, who gave us one of the show’s most memorable scenes ever, to red-carpet princess, to her roles in award-winning projects The Whale and Taylor Swift’s video for All Too Well – her red lengths have served (and served), lending themselves to memorable beauty moments on and off-screen. So when hairstylist Tommy Buckett was asked to chop Sink’s mane for a forthcoming role, he was a bit unsure about the public’s reaction.
“When I was doing it, I was thinking that people are either gonna love me or absolutely hate me,” says Buckett. Of course, the end result is love – Sink’s new floppy, shaggy mullet, which pulls influence from the ’70s, the ’90s and more, is refreshingly rockabilly, and fans are responding accordingly. Ahead of the cut, Sink supplied references from the ’90s, along with allusions to David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
“Jane Fonda was known in the 1970s for cutting all of her hair off in Klute, and it was kind of a shaggy mullet, but I really liked the idea of ’90s reference to Winona Ryder in the front, where you can kind of flip it around and flop it back and it’s kind of like a cool, longer pixie,” says Buckett, who opted to meld the two – along with some extra It-girl inspo via model Freja Beha Erichsen – for a more muted take on the mullet. “You can just kind of throw it around back and forth; it can be styled any way you want, but it really looks good back off your face with a little height and with the sides kicking out,” he says.
Though the results are dramatic, they also feel entirely now. The mullet and its many iterations have been part of the conversation for a few years now, and a soft, easy-to-style version feels like a power move for an ingenue on the rise. “As soon as we did it, she was like, ‘Oh my god, I feel like myself. I’m not freaked out by cutting it all off – hair grows,’” relays Buckett. As for changing the hue? “I would never,” he says, effusing over Sadie’s coppery red with its natural golden tones. “I’ve had this conversation with her many times, like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t let anyone colour your hair. You’ll never get it back.’”
