The return of the pixie crop

When the cover of Vogue and Saturday night primetime TV are united in championing an almost identical New Look, there is no doubt we have a fashion moment on our hands. If a Vogue cover is high fashion's seal of approval for a look, then The X Factor is the barometer of mass appeal.

Unlikely as it may seem, young Hollywood princess Emma Watson and X Factor drama queen Katie Waissel currently stand shoulder to shoulder, joint poster girls for the return of the pixie crop. Watson's, captured by Mario Testino, can be seen gleaming and expensively lit on newsstands everywhere, on the cover of British Vogue. Katie Waissel's new crop, for which she ditched a diva-ish backcombed do, has been all over tabloids and websites ever since it appeared on Saturday night's show.

A dramatic hairstyle is always a personal statement, as much as a fashion one. John Lennon grew his hair past his shoulders; Britney shaved hers off. What does a pixie crop say in 2010? The message, it seems, is "this is the real me". For nine years spent playing Hermione Granger, the terms of Watson's contract demanded that she could not cut her hair. Since that deal made her one of the richest young women in the world, with a fortune of more than £30m, it's hard to see this as an enormous sacrifice, but Watson clearly felt strongly about her velvet handcuffs, however comfortable the padding. Of the crop, which she had cut in time for her publicity tour for Deathly Hallows, she said: "I've wanted to do this for years and years . . . it's the most liberating thing ever."

Katie Waissel, meanwhile, has spent most of this autumn trying to convince the X Factor audience that each of her performances represented "the real me". It is either a telling indictment of our culture, or an impressive testament to the power of a haircut, that when she made that same statement silently, via a new look rather than with words, she won more votes. (Waissel certainly believes that her haircut helped save her from the dreaded bottom two. "My decision paid off," she said yesterday.)

As it happens, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the pixie cut. It was 1960 when Jean Seberg set a new gold-standard for looking drop-dead sexy with short hair in a stripy T-shirt, in A Bout de Souffle. Edie Sedgwick, Mia Farrow and Twiggy followed in her footsteps. The cut was about a fantastical vision of youth: if you flick through magazines from the era, you see "sprite" and "elf" used as compliments.

But now, the pixie cut has almost the opposite meaning. The coverline on Vogue is "Emma Watson comes of age". Because the cut is so closely associated with a generation of 1960s beauties now grown into middle age, it no longer signifies youth. (Emma Watson says her inspiration was her mum, who has had the style for decades.) On the contrary, the crop is a statement about growing up – about disregarding "cute" in favour of "chic". After all, in 2010, when the hippest and youngest of hip young things – Willow Smith, 10 – is singing "I whip my hair back and forth", twentysomethings such as Watson and Waissel are positively old and wise by comparison.

The pixie crop is an arresting image, precisely because it stands out from the prevailing vision of desirable femininity: extra-long, glossy hair with curls the size of Coke cans, as seen on everyone from Cheryl Cole to Kate Middleton. But it is worth noting that Italian couturier Valentino this week sniped at Middleton saying it is "very important" that she change her hair. "To be a future queen, she can't keep her hair this long," he said. A backlash against long hair? This could be the start of something big – or rather, something short.