I’ve Been Cackling About This For Like Five Minutes Now

I need to make notes for my fashion theory class. This is so cool.

Miraculous Hair Style Analysis: Marinette

Full disclosure, I really do like the character designs of Miraculous Ladybug. The characters have clearly recognizable silhouettes and the color palettes used in the designs are used for multiple purposes simultaneously. The color palettes are used to create a clearly recognizable “brand” for each character, and they’re also used to create cohesion or contrast within certain character combinations and they even have symbolism. Hell, I even think the highly criticized villain designs are delightful! Especially the Bubbler.

But, to the main point of this post: this show puts a lot of emphasis on visual storytelling. That’s why the character designs place purpose over what teens would find fashionable. I personally appreciate this choice because it makes the show more timeless than trying to use contemporary fashion would do, and also because I hate it when superheroes show up to fight crime in street wear. Where’s the pizzaz in t-shirts and jeans? (The early 2000s Teen Titans comic is a pet peeve of mine for revamping so many outfits into this.) This purpose is so ingrained into the character designs it’s even visible in the characters’ hairstyles. This analysis is all about picking apart a few of the more standout examples of hairstyles as tools of characterization. First up is Marinette.

Marinette’s hairstyle is a classic girlie girl hairstyle. The twintails go great together with the choice of pink as her primary color, because both traits are attached to femininity and childishness. Miraculous Ladybug is about Marinette growing up, so the childish hairstyle emphasizes her role as a person in need of growing. But that’s not all it symbolizes and this comes together with the other hairstyle Marinette knowingly picks, the bun on the top of her head, that we see in her old school photo in ‘Reflekta’.

The tightly-wound hair bun often symbolises someone who holds themselves back, who is controlled and measured. This is why the primary person we see with this hairstyle is Nathalie, who never has a hair out of place. Miss Bustier’s version of the bun is meant to make her look professional, but the strand of hair escaping from it reveals that she can also be more laid back. Nathalie aims to always remain strictly professional, but Bustier openly cares for her students on a personal level and is very invested in them all growing into the best them they could be.

Marinette is more like Bustier than Nathalie in the symbolism of her hair. Marinette tries to control things (in fact, she’s a bit of a control freak), she can act put together when she knows what she’s doing, like when she’s acting as class president or Ladybug, and Marinette. As an aspiring designer, she probably wants to appear professional and capable. Marinette is also pretty uptight, since the smallest thing going unlike how she planned can make her panic, and that’s important to when the hair comes down.

In ‘Love Hunter’, when Marinette’s hair comes out of its twintails by accident but Adrien still says: “It’s the first time I’ve seen you with your hair down.” “Letting your hair down” is another way of saying “relax”, and this occasion is the first time Adrien has seen Marinette truly unreserved around him since the day they met. Marinette leaving her hair down after Kagami and Adrien compliment her is Marinette letting her guard come down and simply enjoying her time with Adrien and Kagami. It’s only after Kagami and Adrien accidentally remind her that she can’t really understand the things they go through that Marinette ties her hair up again, and, soon after, she leaves the two and runs off because she can’t be her unreserved self around them anymore, constantly second-guessing everything she says or does.

We also see Marinette with her hair down in the split off timeline in ‘Cat Blanc’, when Marinette is so focused on being in love with Adrien and being with Adrien that facing something that challenges that state brings her closer to Akumatization than anything else she’s experienced. I’ve repeatedly stated that my analysis on the themes of ‘Cat Blanc’ is that the episode’s lesson is “easy solutions don’t last”. Because Marinette and Adrien getting together happened so easily in that timeline, Marinette grew careless. It was the classic happily ever after moment, and the story usually ends after the happily ever after, so Marinette wasn’t ready for Gabriel to make his play.

Speaking of Gabriel, as is fitting of Marinette’s foil, Gabriel hairstyle is the typical short-haired version of the uptight-do: it’s slicked back with such care that it looks more like a solid helmet than a hairstyle and Gabriel is never seen without his hair in this style. The message Gabriel’s hair sends is clear: appearances must be kept at all times. Marinette also is overly concerned and conscious over how she might be perceived by others, hence another reason for an “uptight” hairstyle.

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