Good hair day?

What did Jane Austen look like? As I’ve noted before (for example, here and here), we can’t be sure. We have only one portrait we know was taken from life, the famous Cassandra sketch now owned by Britain’s National Portrait Gallery, and Austen’s surviving relatives didn’t think much of the likeness. Recent efforts to create new images based on descriptions of Austen’s appearance inevitably entail much speculation.

But all this uncertainty hasn’t stopped Vogue from announcing that the season’s currently fashionable hairstyle is “Jane Austen bangs,” allegedly based on the 'do worn by Austen herself.  “Judging by her official portraits, the writer wore her curly hair pulled back into a long, voluminous ponytail, letting two curly strands fall over her face,” the magazine claimed in a feature published earlier this month.

If you are puzzled by this reference to portraits, plural (not to mention “official” ones: what, for an 1813 book jacket?), I share your bewilderment. And if you are gazing at the Cassandra portrait and wondering where it shows a “long, voluminous ponytail”—well, ditto.

As far as I can determine from the Vogue piece, Jane Austen bangs are fringe that’s shorter and messier (although artfully so!) than some of the alternatives. But the photos accompanying the story suggest that the line separating Jane Austen bangs from, say, curtain bangs, bottleneck bangs, wispy bangs, and wavy bangs is itself pretty wispy.

Needless to say, achieving the look requires a set of specialized tools—curling iron, blow dryer, diffuser, and “a bit of gel, spray, or moose.” (How non-Canadians are to obtain the moose goes unexplained.)

“The beauty of these bangs are that they exude personality,” Vogue insists. “They’re intensely feminine yet expressive, channeling the strong, determined, courageous, and tenacious heroines of the Regency period.”

In other words, like so many cultural phenomena claiming a piece of the Austen brand, this hairstyle is less about any true Austen connection than it is about an idea of what Austen represents. Or can be made to represent, in a quest to sell hair-care products.