Lifestyle

CUTTING REMARKS

We Need to Talk About Michelle Pfeiffer’s Hair

It’s proof that the most expensive thing you can wear is a lopsided chignon.

Joanna ColesChief Creative and Content Officer

PublishedMar 16, 2026, 3:34 PM EDT

UpdatedMar 16, 2026, 5:04 PM EDT

Updated Mar 16, 2026, 5:04 PM EDTPublished Mar 16, 2026, 3:34 PM EDT

opinion

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Sometimes even the most faithful TV viewer begins to wobble. After devouring the first season of Landman, I tucked into the second course—and began to feel a bit queasy. Billy Bob Thornton was still magnificent, and I can watch him stare meaningfully at a coyote for hours. But the women on the show are unrecognizable to me. They don’t resemble actual human beings to the point where I started to wonder whether Taylor Sheridan, the cowboy-king of television scripts, had ever met one.

So imagine my delight—bordering on disbelief—when Sheridan did the one thing guaranteed to restore my faith: he coaxed the divine Michelle Pfeiffer back onto the small screen for his new series, The Madison.

And she is glorious. Here’s why:

I watched the first two episodes and then did what any self-respecting modern woman does when confronted with greatness: I spent half an hour online frantically searching for the sunglasses her character was wearing. Not similar sunglasses. Those sunglasses. I am convinced they will sell out within minutes of the show airing. Pfeiffer is about to become the most irresistible style oracle of the year.

The embarrassing truth is that I cannot remember a single detail about the plot. Not one. I was too busy watching Michelle’s hair.

Her golden crown appears in several distinct and mesmerizing states: the full chignon, the slightly collapsing chignon, the intriguingly lopsided chignon. Occasionally, a rebellious strand escapes entirely, as though it too is bored with the conventions of precise television grooming. Each configuration somehow looks effortless, expensive, and faintly dangerous.

Where, one finds oneself asking, has Pfeiffer been?

Pfeiffer carries that rare cinematic magic: she makes stillness feel like an event. In The Madison, she moves through rooms as if she owns both the furniture and the emotional temperature. And while I won’t spoil why she is frequently wearing her husband’s clothes, I will say this: oversized hoodies and battered Barbour jackets may soon dominate the summer wardrobe of women who prefer intrigue to Instagram.

Her character’s understated aesthetic could not be more different from the glossy maximalism currently embodied by human chandelier Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who will host this year’s Met Gala. Sánchez Bezos’s aesthetic is turbo-charged glamour: extended hair, sculpted lips and cheekbones, and dresses so gravity-defying that they could have been engineered by Blue Origin. There’s nothing subtle about her. It’s designed to grab attention.

Pfeiffer’s look is the opposite. Soft hair. Oversized clothes. That elusive “no-makeup makeup” that comes across as both accidental and devastating. While Sánchez Bezos’s look screams, “I’M A LOT!” Pfeiffer’s whispers, “I’m enough.”

And yet, to my eyes, Pfeiffer’s version is twice as sexy.

It turns out the most radical trend in 2026—certainly one to try for yourself—may simply be a woman who appears not to be trying at all. Taylor Sheridan may or may not understand women, but by putting Michelle Pfeiffer back on our screens, he has given us something valuable.

A reminder that authentic style is impossible to fake.

This article was originally published on Substack. Want to read more from Joanna Coles? Subscribe to PRIMAL SCREAM.

Joanna ColesChief Creative and Content Officer

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