Chappell Roan’s Chunky Highlights Are So 2005 “TRL”

Sadly, MTV’s seminal music video countdown show TRL is no longer on the air, but ask any millennial and they’ll eagerly tell you how they ran home after school to see which stars would pop by to help Carson Daly and company ring in the top ten videos. If it were, Chappell Roan and her videos would be a mainstay, but we can pretend the show is still on the air with her latest hairstyle, which feels like pure time travel in the best way.

Roan joined fellow musicians Christina Aguilera and Tinashe at the National PrEP Day gathering at Los Angeles’s legendary the Abbey and looked like she stepped right out of the chunky highlights decade. Her trademark curls were nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by a pin-straight style in a vivid shade of crimson red, crafted by hairstylist Virginie Pineda. Chunky strawberry-blonde highlights were placed throughout the red base, similar to the trending hair color aesthetic of the early- to mid-2000s. (Paging Kelly Clarkson!) We’ve noticed a subtle return to chunkier highlights this year, with stars like Jennifer Lopez and Gabrielle Union experimenting with higher-contrast color.

Roan’s straightened style was reminiscent of those I spent hours struggling to recreate with my bulky flat iron, mimicking straight-haired celebs like Aguilera and Avril Lavigne, though hers was paired with a set of choppy baby bangs that ended an inch or so above her skinny, sculpted brows. (The baby bang is also having a moment, with co-signs from celebs including Florence Pugh.) The Grammy winner’s makeup, by makeup artist Dee, was a fun, colorful mix of hues, including cerulean blue, daffodil yellow, and orchid pink, with a brighter pink applied high up on her cheekbones and buffed out to her temples.

Roan did DJ duty at the party—her first time ever—though she wrote on Instagram that “I did literally nothing but vibe and b [sic] cute.” And serve up beauty inspiration, of course!

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