Portrait of Editor sporting a topknot – photographed by Frederique Rapier

Fashion is not determined by the in-crowd and the trend pages of magazines. It is conceptualized by visionaries who have taken inspiration from history, people, culture and  life. Some trends have existed for cultural or religious purposes years before we discovered them. Take for example the simple  topknot which has a vast cultural significance.

Aboriginal Village women and commoners wore their hair in a simple knot at the nape. Court attendants and women of the richer classes wore their hair more fashionably, either in a topknot on the right side with a loop of flowers suspended or in a plait.

If a samurai had his topknot forcibly cut off, it was considered shameful and humiliating, as it is a symbolic of their status.

In many cultures, when the topknot of a child is ceremonially cut, it marks the transition from infancy to adolescence.