Lady Gaga’s Nano-Bangs Might Be The Shortest Fringe Of All Time

A lot has changed since Lady Gaga released her most recent studio album, Chromatica, back in 2020. In the four full years since she dropped the record, she’s built a cosmetics empire, filmed a handful of movies, and embarked on worldwide stadium tour. But for dedicated Little Monsters and casual fans alike, the drought between releases is just too much bear — it sure seems like that’s all about to change, though. At the May 24 red carpet premiere for her Chromatica concert special on HBO, Lady Gaga’s short bangs, jet-black hair, and bleached brows felt at once classically her and totally fresh, suggesting to many fans that she’s about to embark on a new musical era. Gaga herself seemed to confirm the impending release in the HBO special, which concludes with the message “LG7 GAGA RETURNS” briefly flashing across the screen. The question, however, is if this new look concludes one album cycle or kicks off an entirely different one?

Gaga showed up at the concert film’s Los Angeles premiere and corresponding Q-and-A session dressed in what she’s described as an assemblage of automotive pieces. “On the red carpet I told them it was a car part. They said what kind and I said I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic,” she captioned an Instagram post showing the look off, which also featured her new hair color, cut, and and gothic, ghostly brows.

The edgy set of bangs, styled by celebrity pro Frederic Aspiras, are so short and choppy that they can’t even be called micro-bangs, really. They’re more like nano-bangs, only offering an inch of so of fringe across Gaga’s forehead. Combined with the inky black hair color, it creates an entirely new look for the superstar. All through the Chromatica era and beyond, she’s worn her hair in her usual shade of platinum blonde — the extreme 180-degree about-face has many fans convinced this color will be her calling card for her LG7 phase.

Will Gaga feature a new musical styling to match the aesthetic shift? She’s known for tweaking elements of the pop genre to suit different themes, and even these brief teasers seem to indicate that she’s covering a lot of previously-unexplored territory with the new album. All that’s left to do is wait and see.