One of the big plots point in season three of Emily In Paris is the titular character’s hairstyle, her iconic “trauma bangs,” a look all too familiar to women who are really going through something. The show’s star, Lily Collins, shared a behind-the-scenes look at her big chop on Instagram on Tuesday, joking that at least she didn’t do it herself.
In the show, Emily Cooper had a pretty tumultuous love triangle while in Paris, and decides to deal with it by cutting her own hair. In the clip, stylist Gregory Russell does the deed as she laughs, “Baby’s first bangs!”
“Not exactly trauma bangs… unlike Emily, I didn’t cut these myself!” she wrote in her caption, after showing off the new look for the camera. She reposted it in her Stories, adding, “My fringe era.”
In an interview leading up to the big Netflix release of her show, Collins told Vogue France how much she has enjoyed the country and that the upcoming season would be an ode to France.
“The first season was about Emily, and the next one is about her personal identity,” she explained. “Season 3 offers the other characters the opportunity to develop their characters. I’ve been very lucky to be a part of a show that is like one long love letter to Paris and French culture. In the new episodes, we were also able to shoot in Provence.”
Collins added that she and husband writer and producer Charlie McDowell are finally feeling at home there after three seasons of shooting.
“Today, Paris seems smaller to me because I understand it much better,” she said. “We’ve found our bearings, we don’t check Google Maps to see where we’re going anymore, we ride our scooters and bikes through the city. I almost feel like it’s home… As a child, I lived in the United States with my mother, but I learned French at school, and I often went to see my father who lived in Switzerland. So my proximity to French culture goes back a long way.”
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.