If you're a twentysomething wannabe pop star looking for a record deal, here's a piece of advice: dye your hair a shade of carrot. As a shorthand for "quirky", it's the hair look of choice for four of the current queens of alternative pop. Beth Ditto of Gossip went Jaffa orange at the end of last year but in recent days she's been rocking up a storm with a slightly-less-acid orange hue. She's worn it in choppy bob (at the Mercury music prize) and in a messy, curly do for GMTV.
Florence of Florence and the Machine is another glossy ginger trailblazer. Elly "La Roux" Jackson's sculpted crop, meanwhile, is straight out of an 80s L'Oreal mousse advert. Singer/actress Paloma Faith (debut album out next week) rocks a rouge do, too. It's a look that's stood the test of time: just ask Cilla Black, Annie Lennox or Tori Amos. And more leftfield fans of Girls Aloud like to claim Nicola Roberts as the real style icon of the band, not Cheryl.
Fashion also loves a redhead. The "flame-haired" prefix seems to be surgically attached to the name of Grace Coddington, Anna Wintour's creative director on American Vogue. In fashion shoots, meanwhile, a redhead model makes a striking statement, especially in autumn, when a lot of the clothes are black. Karen Elson was the first to really "own" the look in the late 90s with Lily Cole following in 2003; now porcelain-pretty Paige Young is set for a promising career.
But here's the twist. If all these lovely young women are shimmying around with their firecracker tresses, isn't the very look that was once guaranteed to mark you out from the pack in danger of becoming as predictable a part of the kooky female singer's uniform as skinny jeans have become for the indie-boy lead singer?
