I am a forever blonde—I’ve learned my lesson after many expensive hair color sessions restoring my golden shade after going dark or red—but I’d be lying if I said Kaia Gerber’s sunlit brunette hair color wasn’t enticing me to the dark side again. The model and actor, who stars in the much-anticipated TV adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel The Shards, is currently rocking the perfect summery, dimensional brunette streaked with gold, and the sweetest part is that it was directly inspired by her mom, supermodel Cindy Crawford.

Gerber’s longtime colorist Jenna Perry told Allure that the two looked to photos of Crawford in the ‘90s for inspiration when transitioning her hair color in a sunnier direction. “This specific hair color, we’ve been plotting now for maybe two months,” Perry shared. “The inspiration was her mom, truly. We elevated and modernized it a bit, Cindy’s hair in the ’90s was more contrast, hi-fi versus what we did to Kaia, but with the same intentionality: a brunette with very expensive blonde highlights. That was the goal.”

The golden tones are scattered throughout Gerber’s rich brunette base, mostly concentrated near her face and in the mid-lengths to add a warm, easygoing brightness. Perry used a “very fine” balayage technique and R+Color’s Hypermatic demi-permanent hair color to bring that honey-colored blonde to life. “At the [The Shards] premiere, she wore [her hair] in a deep side part, and the focus was that her hairline was really bright and golden so she could flip it around and give that ’90s essence.”

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