Fashion has a habit of
rescuing objects we swore we had outgrown, but few rescues have
felt as improbable as this one. The zig-zag
headband, also known as the comb headband, that stretchy,
toothed band of black plastic last seen at middle-school soccer
practice and in every locker-lined hallway of the late ’90s, is
officially the hair accessory of the season. The
anointment came from the highest possible authority. At the
Miu Miu fall 2026 show in Paris, Miuccia Prada
sent a parade of models down the Palais d’Iéna runway wearing the
serrated little band, and by the time the finale walked, a $5
drugstore staple had been transformed into the most talked-about
beauty moment of the month. This summer, it is everywhere, and the
story of how it got here says everything about the way nostalgia
now moves through fashion.
The Runway Coronation: Guido Palau, Gillian Anderson and a Headband Nobody Took Off
The genius of the Miu Miu moment lay in its casting. Hairstylist Guido Palau placed the wavy band on loose, undone hair across both female and male models, using it sometimes to pull long lengths off the face, as on Gemma Ward, and sometimes as pure ornament on cropped, spiked cuts, proof the piece had graduated from utility to statement. But it was the Gen X goddesses who sealed the deal: Chloë Sevigny wore it with a black leather jacket and minidress, Kristen McMenamy added her own imperious spin, and Gillian Anderson closed the show in a sequin-embroidered buttercream dress with the band nestled in her blond layers. Then came the detail that launched a thousand posts. Anderson and Sevigny simply kept their headbands on, wearing them through their post-show wanderings around Paris, with Anderson still sporting hers at the Miu Miu dinner that evening. Models were photographed leaving the venue with theirs too. When a runway prop refuses to be returned to the accessories table, a trend is no longer a proposal; it is a fact.
From Clueless to C.O. Bigelow: Why the Comb Band Conquered the Summer
The zig-zag band arrives trailing an impeccable pop-culture pedigree. It framed Cher’s face in Clueless and Willow’s in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ruled the halls of Lizzie McGuire and the pitch of Bend It Like Beckham, and was worn by Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and even David Beckham at the height of its first reign. Nor has it ever fully slept: Helmut Lang revived it on the runway in 2014, Amy Adams wore one to a premiere the year before, Bella Hadid slipped it on in 2022 and Alexa Demie gave it the Euphoria treatment. Its current return, though, belongs to a larger movement.
The ’90s beauty resurgence has traded bronzy glam for matte contour and vampy lips, and headbands of every species are having a moment: Gen Z has been mobbing C.O. Bigelow, Manhattan’s oldest apothecary, for the wide tortoise acetate bands beloved by Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, while satin and embellished versions surfaced at Carolina Herrera and Simone Rocha. What Miu Miu did was democratize the frenzy. Where the CBK band carries the weight of quiet luxury, the zig-zag comb costs about five dollars, works on every hair texture and takes exactly one second to apply. That may be the real lesson of the summer’s most stylish comeback: after seasons of aspirational polish, the chicest gesture is the one that looks like you grabbed it from your teenage bedroom drawer on the way out the door.
