Ariana Grande Is Bringing Back The Kippah Clip
“More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” – Ahad Haam
“More than the Jews have kept kippah clips, kippah clips have kept the Jews.” – Schmooze proverb
Ariana Grande, the pop-princess and twee sex-symbol who is recently affianced to comedian Pete Davidson, is being credited with bringing back a metallic hair accessory.
This is, in some circles, breaking news.
“Ariana Grande Is Singlehandedly Bringing Back This Pre-K Hair Trend” announced Refinery 29.
“Ariana Grande Is Bringing Back a ’90s Hair Accessory” said The Cut.
“Ariana Grande rocked this ’90s hair accessory trend that will take you back to sixth grade in the best way” wrote Hello, Giggles.
“Ariana Grande Is Bringing Back ’90s Snap Clips & Your Pile Of Scrunchies Is Quaking” said Bustle.
With all due respect to these beloved publications…how dare they?
Ariana Grande is not wearing a “snap clip” or a “pre-K” hair accessory.
Ariana Grande is quite simply wearing a kippah clip.
Sure, some use bobby pins. But for a long time, metal clips in the shape of oblong triangles have been used to affix kippot to heads. Sold in packets of 24 and usually secured on slim sheafs of white cardboard, kippah clips can be found dangling from grown men’s neck hairs, crunching underfoot in an oneg room, and clamped around a knit circle atop a bat mitzvah girl’s head.
The Schmooze’s Reform rabbi has been wearing kippah clips most days since 1982. So, yeah, we think we know a kippah clip when we see one.
Now I believe I speak for all women, or quite possibly only for myself, when I say that the advent of Ariana Grande has been a bitter lollipop to swallow. Though it may be primarily the work of publicists and handlers and the slimy tentacles of the patriarchy, the rise of Grande seems to herald that women must now be sexy, tiny, cats who have the range of an opera singer, hair like a horse’s tail, and an inability to close our mouths. And then still end up financially supporting weed-dependent college dropouts. (Sorry Pete, we really love you.)
But ultimately, we are happy to have her marrying into the tribe, and we are thrilled that her first move as a Jew-ish person is to reintroduce kippah clips to the masses. This initiative is functional, it is fashionable, and it is egalitarian.
So. You can call ‘em kippahs, kippot, yarmulkes, skullcaps, or little Jewish hat things. You can wear ‘em knit or black felt or Bucharian or pastel polyester sateen, or decorated with a puff-painted Harry Potter, as this Schmooze writer liked to back in ‘99. You can wear ‘em to shul or your neighborhood minyan or to the store or just on Yom Kippur or not at all.
But you can’t put one on without a kippah clip, or it will fall off.
You know it, Ariana knows it, and now everyone will know it.
Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny
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