They say shorter hair is easier to deal with, but that’s not strictly true. When it comes to simple styling, the cut is everything. The shape your stylist snips into your strands will directly determine how long you’ll have to spend fluffing up flat bits, or tucking back awkward tendrils. And that’s true whether your hair is long or short.

But, if we’re looking specifically at bobs, one shape stands out for having an in-built structure (alongside offering up some very sexy texture) and that’s the A-line bob. Unlike a French bob, which tends to get cut blunt, just below the ear, a page-boy bob with its trademark rounded shape or an asymmetrical bob which sees one side of the parting longer than the other, an A-line bob ends longer at the front than at the back. The bonus is that the added length at the front curls under your chin, framing your features, enhancing bone structure and elongating your neck.

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The shape in itself offers versatility. You can adapt how dramatic the angle of your A-line bob is to suit you. The style spans everything from a very subtle graduation, where, for instance, your bob reaches to the bottom of your neck at the back, to just below the bottom of your neck at the front, or a much steeper shift that emphasises the A-line shape more clearly.

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The key is to work with your stylist to create the shape that works best with your natural hair. Softer shapes and slight graduation work better on curly haired girls, whereas straighter-haired girls may want a sharper shape with a more dramatic change in length.

Get the cut right, though and it’ll give you the ability to wash and go, creating all the texture and shape you need without the need for styling. In fact, it’s such a hardworking shape that stylists regularly recommend it to their A-list clients. Fans of the style include JLo, Selena Gomez, Shay Mitchell, Rose Byrne, Brie Larson and Kim Kardashian.

Here's 7 ways to wear the A-line bob...

Super straight like Shay Mitchell.

Ever so graduated, like this slight A-line shape.

Subtle and choppy.

Almost Straight

Nape-length at the back and collarbone-length at the front.

Wavy and Textured

Nape-length at the back and collarbone-length at the front.