Chappell Roan’s ballad “The Subway” is about lost love — but in the music video, it’s hair that takes center stage.
Hair plays an immersive, metaphoric role in the song's long-awaited video, set in a gloomy Manhattan. It opens with Roan sporting longer- and larger-than-life red hair, her flowing curls trailing on the ground, singing “I saw your green hair …” to an ex she spots on the subway.
The ex in question is covered in floor-length, lime-green hair and Roan chases her around New York, with hair used in every scene as a symbol of entanglement and grief.
Artist, hairstylist and designer Charlie Le Mindu, famed for his couture created from hair, designed the costumes; celebrity stylist Lacy Redway was responsible for Roan's actual hair on set.
Throughout the video Roan’s hair rolls along the sidewalk like tumbleweeds; it accumulates trash and rats; it gets slammed in a taxi door and drags the singer down the street. One scene shows Roan climbing up a green hair-covered skyscraper like a Rapunzel-esque King Kong.
As a metaphor for moving on, Roan's hair gets shorter and less cumbersome, until the pop star unveils a quintessential breakup haircut — a shoulder-grazing blunt bob with bangs.
To portray mid-length tresses, Roan wore a suit made entirely of curly red extensions.
Hair artist and wig creator John Novotny crafted the jacket-and-skirt set using 35 bundles of human hair, originally in honey blonde; three lace closures, and two wigs.
Novotny, who collaborated with designer Todd Thomas on the suit, colored its extensions to match the singer’s signature fiery locks, using the IGORA ROYAL line by Schwarzkopf Professional:
- IGORA ROYAL 5-7
- IGORA ROYAL 6-77
- IGORA ROYAL 6-68
As for Roan's "fresh start" haircut? It was a wig, though the singer admitted on Instagram, “You do not. understand. how bad I want a bob now.”