Ivana’s French Twist Is Now All the Rage

Since Ivana Trump appeared on the May cover of Vogue looking 15 years younger and sporting a blond topknot on her head, Orange County hair stylists have been doing the twist--the French twist.

In a single sweep of her tresses, Ivana showed women everywhere how a new hair style, not to mention a little plastic surgery, could turn one into a youthful cover girl.

Almost overnight, stylists began getting requests for French twists from local Ivana-bes.

“We’re doing more up-dos than we’ve done in a long time,” says David Cope, owner of Copa de Ramo in San Juan Capistrano. “The style is soft and pretty, and we haven’t had pretty in a long time. Everything’s been hard and angular and bobbed.”

In a given week, he has about a dozen clients asking for some variation of the French twist.

At Flora Hills in Corona del Mar, soft, casual twists with tousled tops have become desirable among clients wanting a change, as Ivana did.

“Anytime a woman wears her hair up it makes her feel sexier,” says Flora Hills, owner of the boutique and salon.

Like Ivana, some of Hills’ customers want a French twist to go with their new face lifts.

“A lot of times a face lift isn’t that drastic of a change,” Hills says. “But if a woman changes her hair style, her clothes and her makeup, she’ll have a whole new look. She’ll even begin to walk differently.”

The French twist has been out of favor for so long, many women don’t know what to call it. They just ask for a ‘vana.

“Ivana went from one extreme look to another, and people noticed the hair style. It looked great on her,” says Shelly Serrecchio, owner of Cy-Raks salon in Dana Point.

Other customers, especially younger women, want the tousled twist made famous by Claudia Schiffer and her seductive ads for Guess? jeans.

“Everybody notices that girl,” Serrecchio says.

The French twist Schiffer wears differs from the Brigitte Bardot version that inspired it. Schiffer’s is a lot messier.

“It’s more relaxed and sexier than the ‘60s,” says Sharon Orr, salon manager of Aida Grey in South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa. “It has a little pouf to it, but I don’t want to say bouffant because I don’t want to scare people.”

Today’s twist calls for a less structured look with loose tendrils of hair falling around the face.

“In the past, the French twist had more of a beehive look, almost as if the head was pointed in back like a cone head,” Cope says.

Ideally, the twist should look “as if you grasped the hair in one hand, twisted it and stuck one pin in it. That’s the effect you want,” Cope says.

“Sometimes that’s a lot harder to achieve than a sleek look. Anybody can back-comb and spray, but it’s harder to make it look messy. You have to have a good eye to know when to stop.”

Myla Renee, a stylist at Aida Grey, practiced doing a twist on fellow stylist Pam Frey, who sometimes wears her blond hair in a French twist to work during the day or to go dancing at night.

Renee begins by using hot rollers to put soft waves in Frey’s fairly straight hair.

“If the hair is straight and silky, the style will slide right out,” Renee says. “You wouldn’t need to do this for processed hair.”

With a round brush and blow dryer, she adds slight curl to the bangs at the crown to create the volume needed for a tousled top. A gel or mousse can also give a little lift to hair that tends to fall flat, Renee says.

To make the twist, Renee pulls the hair up and toward the back for an uplifting look. She sweeps the hair to one side, anchors it in place with a row of bobby pins, then twists the remaining hair with her hands.

She secures the coil up along the back of the head with more bobby pins. When she comes to the end of the twist, the remaining hair is wrapped around in a loose topknot.

Renee leaves wispy tendrils of hair to frame the face, picking at them with a small comb and squirting them lightly with hair spray to add fullness.

“It should look as if you just stepped out of a convertible,” she says.

Stylists can invent endless variations of the French twist. The bangs can fall forward, as Ivana’s do, or sweep to the side, as the Guess? model’s do. The topknot can be large or small, and sit either forward or toward the back of the head. For Ivana, the grander the affair, the larger her topknot.

French twists work best when one has shoulder-length hair.

“Bobs won’t work,” Serrecchio says.

Older women like the style because it lifts up from their face, giving them a youthful appearance. Younger women, meanwhile, look more sophisticated with their hair up.

“Anyone can wear a French twist,” Serrecchio says. “I’ve done a 16-year-old girl who was going to be in a wedding, and I’ve done a modified version for older women that wasn’t as messy.”

Stylists say the twist is especially popular with brides and bridesmaids because it looks sophisticated and complements the headpiece. Others wear it to the beach, to work or to parties.

Ken Beck, a stylist at Europa International in Fashion Island, Newport Beach, says his clients want a French twist to wear to special occasions, such as a night to hear a performance by Opera Pacific or a formal fund-raiser. At a recent fashion show for Nordstrom, Beck gave all models with shoulder-length hair a French twist.

“It’s a really uplifting look,” he says. “My mom’s been wearing it for years. It’s easy and it looks sophisticated.”

If the hair is dry, Beck says, anyone can do a French twist in five minutes.

“Don’t overdo it, don’t overwork it,” he says. “That’s when you start looking like a schoolmarm.”