"Before, it was more punk.... Now, people are starting to think maybe a shaved head is actually really chic and elegant."

"It’s not just for skinheads."

Women shaving their heads is a big new thing now, according to the NYT.

“Individuality and androgyny are certainly not a new thing in fashion, but the trend has swung back around due to a larger gender conversation,” said Alastair McKimm, the fashion director at i-D....

“A girl with a buzz cut is like Jaden Smith wearing a skirt,” [said shaved-headed model  Tamy Glauser], referring to Will Smith’s son, who has publicly challenged gender norms through fashion. Ms. Glauser says that people often make assumptions about sexual orientation based on appearances, “but the two have nothing to do with each other. I think it’s good for society to see people going against what we’ve all been taught is the way we’re supposed to dress for our sex and our orientation,” she said. “You realize there’s no right or wrong.”

It's funny that something like this can be made to seem new. I've heard remarks like Glauser's for half a century. And here's a book from a quarter century ago — "Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle," by Elaine Showalter  — about breaking the gender norms over 100 years ago. Excellent book, by the way. I read it when it came out. What I remember as Showalter's message is — and I might be misremembering — that the most intelligent and sophisticated people find themselves in the middle, within gender ambiguity. It's the cruder, dumber people at the poles of gender differentiation.

Back to the NYT article:

“The first time [I shaved my head], it was an impulsive decision,” said Mackenzie Jones, 20, who has kept a shaved head since she was 15, when a bad breakup inspired the act. “But when I look back now, I think I did it — without knowing it at the time — because it was the ultimate rejection of the male gaze.”

Besides the obvious convenience and the aesthetic appeal, Ms. Jones said, she has stuck to the shorn style because, particularly when she was younger, it helped filter out potential suitors who weren’t “on my level.” (Plenty of guys, she adds, are into the look.)

Suitors! I love the notion that within this supposedly new way of living, there are still characters called "suitors."

Dressing for one’s self, not one’s paramour, has been a theme in fashion for several seasons now....

Dressing for yourself has been the theme in fashion writing for as long as I can remember, and I have read a lot of fashion writing. (I had a job once — in the 1970s — that required me to read all the fashion magazines.)

And add "paramour" that picture of life as we live it now, along with those "suitors." Paramour and the Suitors — it could be the name of your band.

Practical advice from the article: You'd better make sure you have a good-shaped head before you shave off your hair. It is one way to set yourself apart: I have a well-formed head, and you don't know what hideous form those other ladies are hiding under all that hair.

“A lot of women are very attached to their hair,” Ms. Jones said. “When I was in a bad relationship, my hair was like this mask. Once it’s all gone, you don’t have anything left to change. You have to look yourself in the face and deal with it. It’s really transformative.”

ADDED: From the 60s: