S J Forbes Reveal Their Top Colour and Style Trends for Aw17

Hayley Gibson-Forbes, Director of S J Forbes in Egham reveals her top colour and style trends for A/W17.

Styling

My Little Pony

Ponytails are undoubtedly the biggest hair trend of A/W17 and are such a versatile style that can be worn in so many ways, as we saw at Fashion Week. Prabal Gurung’s ponytails were a tale of two stories: strong, masculine, edgy and harsh at the front, soft and feminine from behind.

To create this look, dampen hair and apply a volumising spray to roots, before scraping hair back tightly in to a ponytail. Curl the ponytail using a tong, to create soft, textured waves. If you want a slightly less romantic, more polished look, copy Oscar De La Renta’s ponytails, which were similarly scraped-back, glossy and frizz-free, but with the ends worn poker straight.

Wet-look ponytails have been around for a few seasons and are showing no signs of going anywhere; I particularly loved the low ponytails, worn with extreme side partings, at Eudon Choi. This is a look that really shows off great bone structure, but I’d steer away from such a harsh look and maintain more volume at the roots if you have softer facial features and a rounder face.

Oh Beehive

My favourite style for A/W17 is the high-volume, high-impact modern beehive as seen at Chanel. This 60s style has been given a modern twist, worn with bejewelled headbands and plenty of attitude. The key to creating this look is in the teasing, so a texturizing spray that adds guts and hold and a fine toothed-comb are essential. After backcombing, hair should be gently brushed and held in place with plenty of hairspray. For styles like this that require plenty of volume, extensions are a great addition. If you lack the volume and thickness that styles like this require, extensions – such as the 100% human hair Easilocks extensions we offer at S J Forbes – add the desired amount of volume, as well as length.

Turn Down the Volume

Low-volume looks – in stark contrast to the oversized styles seen at Chanel – were a standout trend at Fashion Week A/W17. At Topshop Unique hair was worn loose, but styled to look sleek, shiny and so straight it was essentially flat. At Carolina Herrera models wore androgynous styles, with hair slicked tightly against the head. Similarly, at both Eudon Choi and Loewe, ponytails were styled low and slick, held in place with gel to keep the crown as flat as possible. A similarly restrictive ponytail with no room for movement was created at Shrimps, and over at Acne models wore longer hair tucked in to their neckline, to create faux-bobs with no volume whatsoever. The idea is to restrict movement and volume and keep the hair as close to the crown as possible.

If you want to try out the ‘no volume’ look, try a slicked-back ponytail, using a wet-look wax spray to slick the hair back. If you want to keep hair loose, straightening irons will help to flatten hair against the head and a high-gloss finishing product, such as Kérastase Elixir Serum Solide RRP £30.20, will keep the look polished and sleek.

Colour

Sea Green

When it comes to bright colour, last season was all about neon highlighter-pen yellow-green, whereas this season we will see more muted shades of green. Issey Miyake’s models wore mermaid-inspired shades of azure, jade and emerald, with sections of hair dyed oceanic tones, before being sectioned off and wrapped around the entire head, like a headband. It’s a continuation of a theme we saw at Versace – chunky blocks of bright colour rather than overall tints – and a stunning way to add bold tones to the hair, without committing to an all-over colour change.