Carrie Fisher may have modelled the double bun back in 1977 as Princess Leia in Star Wars, but it was Björk’s double top-knot in the early 90s that created a beauty moment.  

Moving the hairstyle from the realms of science fiction into futuristic stage performance, Björk’s twin buns have became her hair signature. In fact, the double buns are so synonymous with her persona that they have inspired countless celebrity copies and appeared on numerous catwalk beauty moodboards.

The flashback
Eccentric Icelandic singer Björk had already smashed the charts as part of 80s band The Sugarcubes, but in tandem with the rise of her solo career came her defining hairstyle: the double buns. Björk’s dark hair, wound tightly into two twin buns positioned on top of the head like Minnie Mouse ears, combined the innocent effect of milkmaid braids with hardcore raver styling.

Björk’s twin bun hairdo encapsulated the contradictions at the heart of her appeal: a grown woman with a nursery-school hairstyle, and a performer whose voice swings from sweetness to howling in the same breath. If Björk’s beauty had an emoji, it would be the twin bun - innocence with an edge.

As her first solo album, Debut (1993), propelled her into public consciousness, Björk experimented with other visionary hairstyles - such as the red cloud of frizz on the cover of her Biophilia album (2011), and the plaited hair sculpture from Medulla (2005) - but it was the twin bun that she has returned to time and time again, even taking them to the extreme for her Alexander McQueen-designed cover for Homogenic (1997).

Fast forward
Björk’s double buns were also seen popping up on a wave of fellow 90s popstars’ heads - from Gwen Stefani, to the Spice Girls.

In recent years, the 90s revival has seen an explosion of Björk-inspired hairdos, sweeping through the blogosphere and filling Pinterest boards and Tumblr feeds everywhere.

It’s not just bloggers who are loving a nostalgic vibe, however, as a new generation of pop stars are in on the act. Miley Cyrus sported the double bun at her never-to-be-forgotten Video Music Awards performance in 2013. You know, the one where she twerked on Robin Thicke while wearing a flesh-tone latex bikini and a foam finger?

And bringing it back full circle, ethereal Mercury Prize-nominee FKA Twigs wears double braided buns on the cover for her critically-acclaimed first album, LP1 (2014).

For Marc by Marc Jacobs SS15 show, models walked the runway with a mohawk of mini buns, inspired by “Björk at an 80s rave”, according to hairstylist Guido Palau.

So influential has Björk been that her career was the subject of a recent MoMA retrospective showing her highly dramatic stage outfits while showcasing her varied and complex musical output - we bet her buns played a major part.