'The Morning Show' will convince you to get a bob
Beauty
Beauty
Hair and makeup department heads Nicole Venables and Cindy Williams share the inspiration and products behind some of season 4’s biggest looks.
Bobs are having a moment — again. Off-screen, they’re dominating runways, red carpets, and TikTok feeds; on-screen, they’re defining character arcs and power dynamics. From the “cunty little bob” seen on "The White Lotus” — cut on Leslie Bibb by hairstylist Chris McMillan — to the sleek, sculpted looks seen in the new season of “The Morning Show,” the haircut du jour has become shorthand for reinvention and authority.
It's no coincidence that on the Apple TV show, where beauty and presentation have always played a central role, hair is used as a storytelling tool. Hair department head Nicole Venables and makeup department head Cindy Williams have always used hair and makeup to reflect the characters’ inner lives, with bobs emerging as their most deliberate visual cue.
Take Greta Lee’s Stella Bak, whose razor-sharp season three chop — another by McMillan (he's Jennifer Aniston's longtime stylist and the creator of "The Rachel")— mirrored her own rise in power. By the time season four begins and she’s CEO, that cut has softened into a slightly longer, mid-length iteration, but the precision remains. “Stella is provocative and scandalous, through and through,” hair department head Venables tells The Set Set. Venables says that for this season, hairstylist Jennifer Petrovitch created Stella’s “slick-back, powerhouse” updos using a selection of Leonor Greyl products.
Karen Pittman as Mia Jordan in "The Morning Show." Photo courtesy of Apple TV.
The importance of beauty and presentation is woven into the fabric of “The Morning Show” from the get-go. We see Alex Levy’s extensive morning skincare routine in episode one and get glimpses of hair and makeup products in the stars’ dressing rooms throughout. (Fun fact: These products aren’t just for show and often cross over with what the hair and makeup teams used on them on set.)
The new girl in town is Marion Cotillard’s Celine Dumont, the new president of UBN, whose bob is the epitome of French girl chic. “This season, Celine is my ultimate, most favorite, on some levels,” Venables says. “It was so fun to design her wig and find that effortless, transitional bob with the waves. I absolutely loved watching her come to life.” Venables created the lived-in look by water setting the waves – a method that involves using water and product to define and shape the hair – with Evian and a wide-tooth comb, air drying, then adding styling cream and painting on oil with a brush to finish.
The real power bob moment of season four, though, is courtesy of Karen Pittman’s Mia Jordan in episode five. Having been promised progression with no follow-through from Stella, Mia decides to put her foot down and makes the executive decision to put TMS presenter Chris Hunter on UBN’s controversial podcaster Bo Hartman’s show. If you weren’t already aware, Mia is taking control. Her look as she strides down the hall makes that clear; the hair feels shorter and sharper, the makeup is bolder, and the power suit is, well, powerful.
"I believe that before we had fewer steps that we did and [her look] was a little bit more clean lines, if I remember rightly,” makeup department head Williams says. “For that, she just stepped it up.” The makeup was very integral to Mia Jordan’s characterisation too. “She would get into character as I was doing her makeup, and once we started getting it on, she'd look in the mirror and say, ‘Oh, there's Mia.’”
Meanwhile, Pittman’s bob was actually inspired by one of her looks in real life. “We came across this one photo, I guess it was randomly taken for something, but she was outside walking somewhere, and it was a quick photo that several of us glommed onto,” Venables explains. “So we had that in our back pocket, and then we worked it in [...] That suit, the whole package I loved. That was great.” And if we know anything about “The Morning Show,” this could signal that we’re heading into a new era for Mia.
