When Grace VanderWaal, winner of America’s Got Talent 2016, made her first television appearance, she was wearing a white button-down with a Peter Pan collar tucked under a navy blue sweater with skinny jeans the color of a daffodil. A meticulously flat-ironed bob and straight-across bangs framed the then 12-year-old’s earnest face as she dumbfounded the audience with her belting, raspy voice and songwriting genius. Rolling Stone quickly labeled her a “pop prodigy.” Simon Cowell christened her “the next Taylor Swift.”
Fast-forward three years, two studio albums, a Billboard Women in Music Rising Star award, a lead acting role in Disney’s newest film Stargirl (set for 2020 release), and a one-of-a-kind haircut—an ear-length crop featuring two shoulder-length pieces on either side of her face. Now VanderWaal is looking less like the prim tween we first met and closer to a grown-up artist with an edgy perspective. Think less Taylor Swift, more Sia. Though, luckily her sense of childlike whimsy hasn’t budged. “I just had this vision of having two super-long braids in the front, like down to my knees, and everything else super short,” VanderWaal tells me over the phone, describing the inspiration behind her devastatingly cool, undeniably weird new look. “I have yet to fulfill that dream, but that was the initial vision when I cut my hair.”
Source: Who What Wear – Amanda Montell