Rachel haircut

The Rachel haircut, also called the Rachel Shag or just The Rachel, is a bouncy, square layered hairstyle introduced by Jennifer Aniston in season 1 of the hit American sitcom Friends (1994) and named after her character, Rachel Green.

The style is claimed to have been created by Jennifer Aniston's hairstylist, Chris McMillan. The Rachel haircut became popular among young women and was copied the world over, becoming the 1990s equivalent of Farrah Fawcett's 1970s flip. Aniston only wore that particular hairstyle during the Friends' first and second seasons — at the beginning of the third season (1996), she switched to a more traditional long-haired look — but it has become associated with the character. In the second season episode "The One With the Lesbian Wedding", Rachel Green moans that her mother (Marlo Thomas) is trying to pattern her own life after hers, lamenting, "Couldn't she just copy my haircut?"

In the February 2011 edition of Allure Magazine, Jennifer Aniston states that it was the ugliest haircut that she had ever seen.

"Have there been disasters? I think that's a very relative term with hair. Let's say there have been moments I'd rather not relive, like that whole Rachel thing. I love Chris [McMillan, her hairstylist], and he's the bane of my existence at the same time because he started that damn Rachel, which was not my best look. How do I say this? I think it was the ugliest haircut I've ever seen. What I really want to know is, how did that thing have legs? Let's just say I'm not a fan of short, layered cuts on my personally, so I don't love revisiting that particular era."

See also

• Eponymous hairstyles