Dido flip

Dido with Youssou N'Dour at Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London, July 2005

The Dido flip was a female hairstyle of the early 21st century in imitation of the singer and songwriter Dido Armstrong. It was a "chopped" style that gave Dido a distinctive look, although, in general, she professed her aversion to performers' appearance detracting from their music.

The style

The term, "Dido flip", was noted by the Sunday Times in a profile of Dido following her winning two "BRIT" Awards in 2002: "Having a distinctive chopped hairstyle that has been widely copied as 'the Dido flip' attracts the paparazzi like hungry mosquitoes".^[1] Stylist Steven Ward, of New York's Garren Salon, described the flip as a "short choppy shag".^[2]

The effect

Dido herself was quoted as saying, with reference to the flip's "wannabe" effect, that she "love[d] it when you turn up at gigs and the first few rows all have your haircut".^[2] However, in some ways, this was an unlikely trend because, although she occasionally posed for fashion magazines and appeared in some mildly risqué videos to accompany songs such as "Sand in My Shoes",^[3] Dido did not obviously promote that side of her persona. In 2006 she remarked, of suggestions that she was a "sex symbol", "I just make music and don't pay much attention to all that".^[4] Indeed, Dido had previously appeared to deprecate artists who relied too much on their appearance: "I've always tried to keep people focused on my music, not on me. So I don't parade around with a bra top and hot pants".^[5]

High Street chic

Paradoxically, it was perhaps the ease with which "ordinary" young women felt able to identify with Dido that led to the flip's catching on. A journalist who interviewed her shortly before the release of her second album, Life for Rent (2003), noted that "for a platinum-selling star she radiates normality .... She looks like any quietly stylish 31-year-old".^[6] In similar vein, the Observer once described Dido's style of dress on stage as "high-street chic".^[7] However, looking ahead in September 2007 to the release of Dido's third album (which, in the event, was released over a year later) the Daily Telegraph speculated as to whether "music's own Bridget Jones ... has, like her trademark boot-cut jeans and eponymous Dido-flip hair, fallen out of fashion".^[8]

The flip was sported for a time by Chelsea Clinton, daughter of the former US President Bill Clinton,^[2] at the time of Dido's rise to fame.

CD covers and materials

The flip was not discernible on the cover of Dido's first album, No Angel (1999), on which her hair was combed back, and by the time of Life for Rent, her hair was longer. It could, however, be seen clearly on the cover of the CD single, "All You Want" (2001), and to a lesser extent on that of her almost seminal song, "Thank You" (2001). Photographs of Dido published in November 2008 with her third album, Safe Trip Home, showed a version of the flip that was slightly longer and shaggier than before. However, perhaps the most obvious and consistent features of that portfolio, given Dido's remarks in 2005 about her appearance, were glimpses, with at least four different outfits, of her black brassiere.

Other eponymous styles

Other eponymous styles of the late 20th and early 21st centuries included the "Bo Derek" and the "Rachel" (after Jennifer Aniston's character in the TV series Friends).

Notes

1. ^ Sunday Times, 24 February 2002
2. ^ ^{a b c} Sunday Times magazine, 2002
3. ^ Life for Rent album (2003)
4. ^ Metro, 5 September 2006
5. ^ Daily Mail, 24 June 2005
6. ^ Dorian Lynskey in The Big Issue, 21–27 July 2003
7. ^ Observer, 1 August 2004
8. ^ The golden season: November - Telegraph

External links

• Hair secrets of the stars: Dido's look