CELEB NEWS

Shawn Mendes Cuts His Hair, Signaling Normalcy is on the Horizon

Soon, we'll all have to worry about what our hair looks like again.


Shawn Mendes with long hair.
Photo by Kevin Winter/AMA2020/Getty Images for dcp

Remember the dark days of last March and April, when somehow, the nearly daily paparazzi photos of Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello walking around the Miami neighborhood where they had been quarantining was one of the few ways to mark the passage of time? The formerly primped and preened pop stars left the house in rumpled clothing seemingly proffered from the corners of a hastily packed suitcase. Cabello seemed to prefer pajama bottoms while Mendes favored mesh athletic shirts—sometimes with a 5-for-$10 undershirt and sometimes, with no shirt at all. It was embarrassing to even care about any celebrity at the time, but at least Mendes and Cabello were kind enough not to pretend their situation was any more glamorous than the rest of ours.

There they were, seemingly stunned and somber in their grossest clothing, just trying to get a few steps in during lockdown. There we were, stunned and somber in our grossest clothing, clicking through some Just Jared gallery looking at them.

Of course, we’ve all found ways to make life a little bit better since then. Mendes has even released a full album since, but he’s kept a bit of that lockdown grunge by seemingly refusing to cut his hair. In his “little boy wonder” days, Mendes’s hair was always perfectly coiffed with just a hint of mischievous messiness, but as the pandemic raged on he let his mane grow to the point where he was able to achieve a man bun (apparently Cabello thought it was sexy).

Though now, nearly a year later, Mendes has finally cut his hair again. He’s back to the more primped and preened pop star—the likes of which he was introduced to us. “Goodbye long hair !!” he wrote in an Instagram story before thanking his stylist.

via Shawn Mendes’s Instagram.

Of course, the pandemic isn’t over, but hope is finally on the horizon. The Biden administration has promised that enough doses of vaccine will be available for any American who wants them by July. Pending some mass civic failure or horrifying, vaccine- or mask-defying mutation, it’s (hopefully) likely that the worst days are behind us.

Which, of course means, like Mendes, we’re all going to have to start thinking about maintaining presentable hair again, wearing clothes that aren’t exclusively from our sleep or workout drawers, and figuring out how to be a human who moves through the world at some point.

Related: Mullets Are the Quarantine Trend We Didn’t See Coming