Chop shop: Salons report a run on Abbey Lee Kershaw's bob

david jones SS1011 backstage

We’ve seen The Pip and The Pob, make way for The Kob – aka The Chanel Bob. That’s the short, choppy bob currently being sported by Australian supermod Abbey Lee Kershaw. LifeStyled editor Paula Joye christened it The Kob in her David Jones show wrap, noting that beyond the Mark McInnes sexual harassment scandal, Kershaw’s do was the talk of the front row at the August 3 show in Sydney, which starred Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Nicole Trunfio as replacements for pregnant Miranda Kerr. “It’s a modern, long bob and I think a lot of the people in the front row have already booked in for an Abbey chop” Joye told frockwriter. “I think this the beginning of the return of the fringe. Kim Kardashian has just cut one. Lea Michele was sporting an extra long one at the Emmys. Leighton Meester, she’s had one cut as well. That long bob and that serious fringe that’s cut from quite far back". So have people in fact been booking in for Kershaw’s look? Update 10/09: Chameleon Kershaw now a platinum blonde.

“Her [Kershaw’s] 60s style fringe is a big request and so is the long bob, which is a great care-free look for summer’ Sharona Short from the Gold Coast salon Oscar Oscar told The Gold Coast Bulletin on Tuesday. 

And it seems Sydney’s most high profile hair salons are also feeling the Abbey Lee love.

Harold Samu, salon manager at the Renya Xydis City salon reports that at least 15 women have asked for Kershaw’s bob in recent months. Notes Samu, “They ask for a choppier bob. My senior stylist Ryan Mitchell has named it The Chanel Bob, as made famous by Abbey Lee”.

According to Joh Bailey, “It’s having a huge impact. I think she’s single-handedly reinvented the bob and the blunt fringe, particularly the blunt fringe. It’s definitely being consumer-driven and they’re definitely mentioning her name. I think it looks fabulous. We’re doing a lot of that look in the salon at the moment”.

Well might Ryan Mitchell call it The Chanel Bob because Kershaw’s mother agency, Chic Management, tells frockwriter that it was in fact Chanel’s hair stylist who cut Kershaw’s hair - for the brand’s recent Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign (below).  

Perhaps Chanel felt Kershaw’s previously long locks were a little too boho (not to mention Gucci) for its haute couture image?

“She looked more Seventies disco queen than high fashion model” notes another high profile Sydney hair stylist, George Giavis. Giavis reports that although he hasn’t vetted any calls for Kershaw’s new bob per se, a number of clients have come in to his salon with magazine tear sheets of Kershaw asking for her distinctive “sun-kissed” hair colour which, according to Giavis, “looks like she’s spent a week in the Bahamas”.   

chanel FW1011/zinio via TFS

Kershaw’s new choppy bob may even be catching on with men.

Overnight, coincidentally, Dutch stylist Jean Paul Paula blogged photos of himself sporting a new do which he is calling The Manbob:

jean paul paula