When we look back on 2020, it's hard to find anything to miss about it. It was a Very Bad Year. But every now and then, I think about how we all had to come to accept that, if we were going to colour our hair, we were going to have to do it ourselves, and how, for many, that meant going grey in a way that felt more like embracing than surrendering — and that was actually pretty cool. In the years since, most of the celebrities who were temporarily OK with grey went back to colouring their hair when they could see their colourists again. So when we see a celebrity start to put their greys on display despite easy access to salons, the way Katie Holmes is currently doing, there's something very cool about that.
On February 7, Holmes attended a Chanel dinner celebrating the opening of the brand's watches and fine jewellery flagship boutique in New York City — you know, a normal Wednesday evening for any of us. She wore an impossibly chic navy blue matching set and a stunning bolo tie-esque rose motif diamond necklace. Her dark red lip was balanced with shimmering, barely-there eye makeup for a classic look.
But it's Holmes's hair that really made the ensemble memorable. A perfectly imperfect low braid was slung over her right shoulder, cascading down from a voluminous side part. And that part revealed a gorgeous transition between her rich brown hair and a subtle burst of silvery grey roots.
There's no harsh line of demarcation between the brunette and the grey, suggesting that Katie Holmes may have just started going grey in the last few months and opted not to cover it, or she asked a colourist to expertly blend the two tones.
Either way, it looks simultaneously sophisticated and edgy, and it will undoubtedly serve as grey-embracing inspiration for lots of folks whose colour has recently begun to shift.
This feature originally appeared on Allure.
