Instagram Is Blowing Up Over Khloe Kardashian’s High-Fashion Ponytail

Not since Beyoncé at the 2015 Met Gala have we seen people so riled up about a ponytail. Leave it to Khloe Kardashian to get them there. Last night, hairstylist Cesar DeLeon Ramirez shared photos of a very high-fashion ponytail he created on Khloe for her appearances on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon and Watch What Happens Live.

The style was ultrasleek and shiny, pulled low, and adorned with a series of black bobby pins stacked behind each ear. It was the pins that got people talking, and countless likes and comments later, the chatter continues, with some Khloe fans calling the pins “the bomb”, sexy, and chic, and others expressing confusion. Highly visible bobby pins used as statement hair accessories is a concept we’ve seen on many runways (memorably: Zac Posen fall 2014, below) and celebrities in recent years, but in real life, it’s an idea that some are reluctant to try. Understandable, since we’re talking about an item that was originally designed to be invisible.

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We decided to go straight to the source and ask Ramirez, global artistic director for Mizani, to tell us the story behind the style people are responding so passionately to one way or another. “I was inspired by Khloe’s form-fitting one piece lace jumpsuit,” he tells us. “Since it had the structure of a men’s suit, I wanted to play off the androgyny with a strong, sleek structured style.” To get Kardashian’s thick hair into a seamless low pony, he used a trick: First he created a part from ear to ear, dividing her hair into front and back sections. He pulled the back section into a pony first, securing it with a long, black bungee tie. Then he center-parted the front and pulled each side back into the ponytail. To get the high gloss finish, he used Mizani Defyne Wax, and a Conair porcupine-bristle cushion brush, to pull the hair extra taut and smooth.

As for those somewhat controversial pins, “I like to make ponytails a bit more interesting, so I wrapped it in black cord and added the black bobby pins on both sides,” Ramirez explains. He got the look by stacking flat black bobbies from Conair. As for us, we’d totally pop a couple contrasting pins into our next hairstyle as a nod to Kardashian’s runway-pony moment.

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