It was a purchase by everyone’s favorite cool-girl, Chloë Sevigny, that really kicked things off for Good Squish. Founded by casting director Billie Cronin, the London hair accessory brand was born out of boredom during lockdown after Cronin learned to sew.
Cronin was no stranger to wearing her Swedish grandma’s Victorian table linen in her hair: “I wore a napkin as a hair bandana for ages, and my best friend came over at a dinner party and told me it looked weird… because it was a napkin. I really took that to heart,” she laughs. “When I learned to sew with my ex-boyfriend’s mum, we figured out a way of making the napkins into hair accessories, and that’s how the first batch of [Good Squish] came to life.”
She gave them to her friends, her friends gave them to their friends—and then the whole world started buying them, including Sevigny, who DMed her, wore one, posted about it on Instagram and then “everyone started messaging me to buy them, it went wild.” It’s a story about the power of manifestation: The year before Sevigny had purchased her own Good Squish, Cronin had listed in her diary all the people she’d like to wear her creations, and Sevigny was number one. Now, all of London’s chicest are wearing them, brides are wearing them and, ask around the Vogue offices, and editors are either about to purchase or already wearing theirs with pride.
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If you’re not already familiar with Good Squish, then you’re in for a treat. The souped-up hair scrunchies are handmade using different deadstock fabrics (sourced mostly from the UK, whether from Paul Smith’s leftover shirting to eBay finds), and often make use of that OG Victorian broderie anglaise that Cronin first wore in her hair. The perfect way to spruce up a ponytail or bun, it’s no wonder they sell out quickly. “If you’re feeling a bit scruffy or a bit yuck, you put one on and you feel quite glamorous,” says Cronin, who laments the fact that she has since cut her own longer hair into a “very short mullet” so can’t wear them herself.
Marketing Good Squish as a “living thing” has been one reason Cronin, when I ask, thinks they have done so well. “I think it’s that and I’ve also been really lucky enough to develop a real sense of community—I think people feel a part of something when they wear one.” Wearing my own Good Squish in the office has garnered not just compliments, but stories about people’s own experiences with the brand.
Still a very homespun affair, Cronin and her team of four seamstresses (including the aforementioned ex-boyfriend’s mum, Annabel), predominantly work out of Cronin’s living room. “We also dye them all in my bath—it has been a bit of a challenge because people want them on the same day they’ve bought them because of Amazon,” she says. “I’m like ‘bear with us, we’re literally dyeing them in the bath right now, sorry!’”
