Is that a bird on your head or are you just being trendy?

They’ve recently shown up in the hair of 99 percent of the women I see on campus. This is a grossly exaggerated approximation borne of personal bias.

Not natural bird feathers. Brightly colored, chemically treated, dead rooster butt feathers that are somehow woven onto the scalp. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if the feather was put there purposely or if a leaf accidentally perched itself on the girl’s head.
 
Nevertheless, the trend seems to have started innocently enough last semester.A few stylish women said to themselves (this is, again, an approximation), “Hey, why only wear feathers dangling from our ears when we can permanently attach them to our heads? Isn’t that so darling and indie of us?”

That mentalilty seems to have stuck.

Every girl wants to be darling and indie, rebellious in an “I’m going to wear this brightly colored thing in my hair that I can hide or take out if necessary, but it still makes me unique, although hundreds of other girls are wearing it” way.

The accessory is a safe way to capture that wonderful sense of artsy “Je ne sais quoi” that many of us struggle with — the removable, parent-friendly version of a tattoo or an odd piercing.

If you’re going to wear a feather, wear it well. Don’t put a teal feather in your hair and then spend the next week in leggings, boat shoes and a large half-zip (don’t think I haven’t seen you do it). This defeats the purpose of the feather in the first place.

If you must befeather yourself, at least play it up. You’re young. You can wear bright colors and wild things. That’s what the feather is supposed to represent. Do it now, before you’re confined to the world of class and tastefulness that is the adult world.

Make your feather worth the life of the poor, specially bred rooster whose population you are decimating (not to be the bearer of bad news, but the little birds have to die for us to get the feathers off their tails).

The fact is, the feather craze is on its way out. Too many people are doing it, and it’s losing the unexpected factor that made it so attractive in the first place.

So hold on to your feather for another month or so. But after that, I advise retiring it to your corkboard or to your bookmark stash as a reminder of trends and summers past. If you absolutely must still have that “pop of color” in your hair, grow some balls and dye a streak.

It’s the same idea as your dear feather, but it doesn’t get caught in the wind and stand straight above your head like you’re a makeshift Pocahontas. Leave the rest of the feathers to the birds and to the fly fishermen that need them to make lures.

Unless you want to catch a fish with your head. I’ve heard there are some pretty big bass in Lake Monroe.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu