You Can Achieve Taylor Swift's Red Carpet Hair At Home

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 4 February 2024

Tonight, Taylor Swift arrived at the 2024 Grammy Awards (with fellow nominee Lana Del Rey) wearing her honey blonde hair tumbling down on one side. But a closer look shows just how intricate this hairstyle really is: her side swept look was accomplished not by a traditional application of gel and hairspray, but by a diagonal French braid that snaked down the back of her head.

Swift's thin braid started behind her ear on the right side of her scalp, then cascaded down her mane, gradually incorporating more and more hair until the overall look ultimately gave the appearance of a dramatic side part.

To get the look, start by making a small braid on one side of your head, just under your ear, and add tiny amounts of freshly brushed hair as you continue to braid down your hair. To ensure that your braid maintains a perfect diagonal trajectory as it runs across the back of your hair, consider having a friend watch you braid, or ask them to braid it themselves (if they can). Conversely, you can set up mirrors both in front of and behind you so that you can see what the back of your hair looks like while you braid.

Swift's look is a sweet, romantic one that comes as a surprise, particularly amid her other recent looks, such as her stunning Jessica Rabbit-esque waves at the Golden Globe Awards just last month. Swift's hair 'do tonight also brought the volume, considering her fluffy side bangs swept to the same side as the majority of her hair. However, the incorporation of the braid makes the look far sweeter and more subdued, even hearkening back to the homespun country image she first adopted when she came on the music scene in the early 2000s.

The best part? It's a look you can easily replicate at home.

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Gabrielle Ulubay is a Beauty Writer at Marie Claire. She has also written about sexual wellness, politics, culture, and fashion at Marie Claire and at publications including The New York Times, HuffPost Personal, Bustle, Alma, Muskrat Magazine, O'Bheal, and elsewhere. Her personal essay in The New York Times' Modern Love column kickstarted her professional writing career in 2018, and that piece has since been printed in the 2019 revised edition of the Modern Love book. Having studied history, international relations, and film, she has made films on politics and gender equity in addition to writing about cinema for Film Ireland, University College Cork, and on her personal blog, gabrielleulubay.medium.com. Before working with Marie Claire, Gabrielle worked in local government, higher education, and sales, and has resided in four countries and counting. She has worked extensively in the e-commerce and sales spaces since 2020, and spent two years at Drizly, where she developed an expertise in finding the best, highest quality goods and experiences money can buy.

Deeply political, she believes that skincare, haircare, and sexual wellness are central tenets to one's overall health and fights for them to be taken seriously, especially for people of color. She also loves studying makeup as a means of artistic expression, drawing on her experience as an artist in her analysis of beauty trends. She's based in New York City, where she can be found watching movies or running her art business when she isn't writing. Find her on Twitter at @GabrielleUlubay or on Instagram at @gabrielle.ulubay, or follow her art at @suburban.graffiti.art