Remember: A New ‘Do Can Mean a New You

Allen Edwards thinks everyone should change hairstyles every six months.

“You don’t wear the same clothes all the time,” the hairdresser notes. “You don’t go into a clothing store and say, ‘I would like clothes from two years ago. . . .’ ”

At 53, Edwards has become an established voice for celebrity hair. When E! and Extra want to dish, they call him.

Indeed, he comes with credentials, having famously made over former district attorney Marcia Clark, taking her from tight curls to a more relaxed shag. He shrunk Donna Mills’ big hair of the ‘80s to scrunchy curls and later to a more refined shag. And more recently, he chopped off sex symbol Raquel Welch’s long hair.

“It gave her career a rebirthing,” Edwards says.

He’d love to cut off Cindy Crawford’s gorgeous locks. He wants to give Calista Flockhart of “Ally McBeal” short hair and bangs. And he wants Farrah Fawcett to come back.

“Farrah needs me,” says the originator of the ‘70s Farrah shag, still seen in malls everywhere.

Hair is the ultimate accessory, he says.

“Your hair always grows back.”

Women especially need change, adds the man who owns three Allen Edwards Salons and Allan Edwards Salon & Serenity Spas.

“They should do drastic stuff all the time,” he says.

Women often make the mistake, he says, of clinging to a look that made them look good 10 years ago. This is especially true of women in their late 30s and early 40s. “They get stuck.”

But “when you don’t do new things or change, you get forgotten about.”

Sometimes a relationship holds people back.

Customers tell him, “ ‘My husband doesn’t want me to cut my hair.’ It’s sad when I hear this stuff.”

Some men, he says, feel threatened when their wives change their look.

He tells clients, “Men always want their wives to have long hair because their girlfriends all have short hair.”

Customers continue to ask: “What’s the very best look for me?”

There isn’t one look, Edwards says. “There are a million looks.”

The first drastic change is the hardest, he says. “Once they do that, then they’ll always change their hair.”

Edwards says celebrities, notably young actresses like Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron, seem willing to cut off all their hair, a change from the older days of Hollywood.

“This would never have happened,” he says.

“The new age celebrity is very aggressive. They’re not getting hired because of their look. They’re getting hired because they’re good.”

“New age” doesn’t necessarily mean young. One of Edwards’ favorite clients is Anne Bancroft, in her 70s, who has a simple, weighty bob.

Every once in a while, a client will come to him, overweight and depressed after a new baby. His advice: “Change your look.

“If I’m 50 pounds overweight, at least I can change my makeup and change my hair and look pretty. If I need to lose weight, I go buy some new clothes and go to the gym. Then I start dieting.”