Superscrunchie me!
The 1980s must-have hair accessory is back – and it’s bigger than ever, says Maddy Fletcher
Billie-Jo Cronin has always liked unusual hair accessories. Once, the 30-year-old arrived at a dinner party wearing a Victorian napkin as a bandanna. ‘My friend told me I couldn’t wear a napkin on my head.’
Cronin didn’t listen. In 2021, the then fashion assistant asked her ex-boyfriend’s mother (‘an excellent seamstress’) to teach her how to make scrunchies. Using deadstock materials Cronin began selling enormous, souped-up versions – ‘squishes’ – online.
She called the brand Good Squish (goodsquish.com) and it was a hit: within two years, she was shifting around 1,900 products a month. Now Cronin has an office in London, employs nine people, has collaborated with Scandi fashion label Ganni and hosted a pre-Christmas pop-up shop in Soho where she flogged around 230 squishes in three days. (Cronin says there were a lot of confused dads sent to buy gifts. ‘They were like: “What are these things?’’’)
Her gigantic scrunchies are divisive. When I showed them to YOU’s editor, she recoiled. One of the men in the office said they looked a bit like an Elizabethan ruff. He went on to wonder if, like the Elizabethans, whose ruffs enlarged throughout the century, scrunchies were on an equally exponential trajectory. Our fashion director commented: ‘Sorry, they are just so not me,’ and then referenced an episode of Sex and the City where protagonist Carrie Bradshaw argues with her boyfriend about whether any self-respecting Manhattan woman would wear a scrunchie. Carrie’s view? Absolutely not.
However, New York It-girl
Chloë Sevigny has two squishes. YOU’s fashion stylist Jessica Carroll has one in green. ‘It’s perfect for a second – or third! – hair day,’ she says. ‘When I’ve worn mine, I’ve had loads of people come up to
me, asking if it’s a Good Squish and telling me about their own.’
The trouble is the price. The cheapest is €25, the priciest €80. This is largely due to fabric costs; there’s one metre of material in a ‘Queen’ size scrunchie and Cronin gets her fabric (now 70 per cent deadstock, 30 per cent new) from quality suppliers. Squishes are handmade by in-house seamstresses and take around 40 minutes to finish. ‘I want to pay everyone a good salary,’ she says. The company also offers a free repair service.
Since the brand has grown, there have been several cheaper imitations. Cronin isn’t fussed. ‘Ours are expensive and it’s nice that people want to make their own versions if they can’t afford to buy ours,’ she says. ‘If I got stressed about stuff like that, I’d probably just be sad all the time.’
The scrunchie was patented in 1986 by American nightclub singer Rommy Hunt Revson.
The then 42-year-old hated flimsy hair ties so, inspired by the drawstring of her pyjama bottoms, made a scrunchie.
The name came from her poodle Scunchie and the ‘r’ was added later. Today, Revson’s prototype – a black and gold design – is on display in Washington’s Smithsonian Museum.
The accessory was big in the 1980s and 90s: Madonna wore scrunchies on tour, US astronaut Pamela Melroy took one into space and Hillary Clinton donned them to deliver political speeches. In her memoir Hard Choices, Clinton wrote that the alternative title for the book was The Scrunchie Chronicles.
By the early 2000s, their popularity had waned, to be replaced by smaller, more serious hair ties. But now they’re back. And once you’re aware of them, you spot them everywhere: at the pub, on the train, in the street. Squish, squish, squish.
There’s no age limit to wearing them, either. ‘[Older shoppers] often start off not wanting one and then decide that, actually, they do,’ says Cronin. One of her dreams is to get Helena Bonham Carter in a squish. Frankly, I’m surprised the actress doesn’t own one already.
As for her brand’s future,
Cronin says the plan for now is straightforward: ‘More unnecessary accessories!’