Belgian wine inspires haircut that takes bottle

David Beckham's World Cup haircut sparked the Hoxton fin. The Rachel cut was inspired by Jennifer Aniston's character in Friends.

But the latest follicular fashion has a rather more unusual origin: the Bulgarian wine trade.

The distinctive shape of Blueridge bottles is fast becoming the look for the season, with London stylists claiming more and more customers are requesting the ridge cut.

To the uninitiated, the ridge is long on one side and short on the other, the slanting fringe reflecting the angle of the bottletop. The style was created last September as part of an advertising campaign for Blueridge by the ad agency M&C Saatchi under the slogan: "A range of wines with a new angle."

The poster features a man in a barber's shop who looks happy after getting the ridge cut. Behind him are black and white photographs of glamorous models wearing their hair in the same style.

The word has spread. The Toni & Guy in-house magazine, Strada, has featured the advertisement. Burlingtons salon in central London says the ridge is a growing phenomenon among the uber-cool.

Clive Colman, a partner at Burlingtons, said an increasing number of clients wanted the cut. "I have seen people coming in with a picture of it and one person came in holding the bottle itself. It is an amazing concept and looks great with the longer, denser section of hair across one eye. Some have had the bottle's bluish-black red colour put in through the fringe." He added that the ridge had claimed pole position at a time when hairdressers were fighting to find the next hot look.

Ruth Hunsley, deputy editor of Hairdressers Journal, said the style may have gained momentum at a time when many were looking for a less corporate, more individual look.

"It could be a way of buying into a quirky image, especially if you are a fan of the wine, and it could be interpreted as a little cult thing. It could also be about not wanting to look the same. It could be marking how we have moved on from the poker-straight Rachel," she said.

Matt Eastwood, creative director at M&C Saatchi, said the advert was created to appeal to a younger audience which was not run-of-the-mill. "The haircut was really a branding exercise to get people to recognise the wine. It's got a very cool, youthful image and the poster is a beautiful photograph resembling something from a fashion magazine," he said.

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