Hopefully, you haven’t thrown away those toothy Goody clips from middle school. Because, yes, claw clips are having a moment … again.
Once popularized by Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green in Friends and speckled through the hair of the young Olsen twins, these jawed accessories are now behind the chic updos of celebs like Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber.
Joshua Holder has watched many decades-old trends come back into style via Time Warp Boutique, the vintage shop he opened in 2000. He remembers the claw clips of the ’80s and ’90s. And now, they’re hot sellers at Time Warp.
“With everything, I think it’s just about how you can modernize things or do something different from the past,” he says. “That’s mainly what fashion is all about. It just recycles itself. … Most designers today are just taking inspiration from older garments and older styles, and then creating collections around those details.”
But don’t expect boring, cookie-cutter hairpieces at local boutiques in 2025. Clips shaped like flaming Magic 8 Balls, bananas and UFOs line displays at Time Warp. There are fun shapes and styles everywhere from Bella Bella Boutique and Frock Candy to JM Boutique and Wanderlust by Abby. A claw clip will give any ensemble that extra oomph.
“It’s still functional,” Holder notes. “But at the same time, you get to add your own personal style.”
220%
[Increase in keyword search interest for “claw clips” from December 2020 to December 2024.]
Lafayette artist Colette Bernard’s viral hair claws can be found around the Capital Region, as well. Making wacky clips shaped like berries, crawfish claws and candy corn was life changing for Bernard. After her college campus in New York closed for the pandemic, she found herself back in her Louisiana childhood home designing merchandise to pay bills. She tried stickers, silk-screened bandanas and other mediums, promoting them all on social media. Then she turned three designs into hair claws.
“One of them happened to be a wisdom tooth, just by pure chance,” she says. “The dental industry found that design and blew it up. And that was how I got the idea for Career Claws, which I now have the trademark for. That’s how the hair claw thing started, and it is by far the most profitable thing that I’ve ever designed.”
Her Career Claws collection includes iconography associated with a slew of professions. There’s a coffee bean for baristas. Eyeballs for optometrists. Prescription bottles for pharmacists—and more. Last year’s top sellers included several health care-related designs. Bernard believes their popularity has a lot to do with employees wanting to keep their hair up on the job.
Bernard hand-draws her designs and sends them to manufacturers. They’re brought to life using bioacetate, a sturdy, eco-friendly material made of renewable resources. Career Claws and other hair clips from Bernard sell fast and can be found online, in her Lafayette shop, at pop-ups and through retailers like Local Supply in Baton Rouge.
From martini glasses and anatomical hearts to flower bunches and hot dogs, claw clips have come a long way. And while those glossy black, tortoise print clips are cool again, the out-of-the-box shapes and designs seem to be winning the hearts—and hairs—of buyers.
Twist up your hair and secure it with a clip. Or, divide your hair half-up and half-down, and fasten the clip in place.
Claw-clip artist Colette Bernard’s go-to? Space buns. That way she can show off two designs in one hairstyle.
“I went to school for sculpture, so wearable art has always been something that has been at the forefront of my portfolio in general,” she says. “There were so many ways that I had already been playing with objects of art. I’ve always kind of used objects and symbols in my work, and this was like the next thing to try out, and it just works.”
This article was originally published in the March 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.
