The bridge hairstyle: the '90s hair trend that will make you cringe and laugh

The glory days of school hair experiments. Back when our biggest beauty dilemma wasn’t contour or balayage, but whether we could make our fringe do something cool without crying in front of the bathroom mirror.

I’m talking about the hairstyle that ruled our afternoons and slayed school photo days: the infamous “bridge" hairstyle. I'm not sure what it's called, but that's how it was described back then.

If you grew up in the late 90s to early 2000s, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’d pull your fringe or front hair up like a little bridge, leaving the sides hanging loose, or sometimes tying them back into a mini ponytail.

It was equal parts creativity and chaos, and somehow, it made you feel like the queen.

Sometimes it worked, most times it didn’t. One too-tight pull and suddenly you were left with a migraine and a mini forehead burn. But the triumph when you got it just right? Oh, unmatched. It was basically a rite of passage, a beauty victory in a world where hairspray and gel were our holy grail.

That hairstyle doubled as a shield for our freshly washed hair on a humid day, a way to keep that fringe out of our eyes while walking home from school, or even a disguise for a bad-hair-day that was, well… every day.

If your hair bump held up through lunch and the inevitable tug-of-war with your bestie’s comb, you had conquered life that afternoon.

I recently came across a video of a woman attempting this hairstyle today, and I couldn’t stop laughing. What were we doing back then?

The whole thing looked hilariously over-the-top in the modern age. And what made it even funnier were the poses we used to strike whenever someone tried to take a picture, hands on hips, slight head tilt, fake smile, squinted eyes, the whole cringe-worthy package.

What’s funny is how creative we got. Some would add barrettes, tiny rubber bands, or even attempt the “double bridge” if they were feeling bold.

It was fashion experimentation, hair edition, and all of it done with zero YouTube tutorials. We were self-taught, fearless, and slightly terrified of our parents walking in mid-bridge creation.

Viewers couldn’t help but laugh while sharing in the nostalgia, with many asking themselves, “Wait… this was even a hairstyle?” Looking back, it’s ridiculous, it’s cringe, but it’s also undeniably iconic.