Heads aplenty join a chorus of red

LITTLE ROCK — Last June, in the middle of her Last Girl on Earth tour, the R&B pop diva Rihanna strutted onto the Rock in Rio stage outside Madrid with the sides of her head shaved and a bowl-cut of hair dyed matador red - the color of blood and passion and showmanship. Since then, Rihanna’s red has evolved further, from a voluminous Elmo-red wig while shooting the “What’s My Name” video on New York’s Lower East Side in September to fire-engine-hued extensions during Paris Fashion Week in October.

“The album was called Loud, and it just fit,” Ursula Stephen, Rihanna’s hairstylist, said about the singer’s new CD and the decision to make her a redhead. “It made the statement she wanted to make.”

But right now red hair is not just one woman’s statement - it’s a chorus. The subtly auburn girl-next-door actress Emma Stone, of Easy A and Superbad, made her Saturday Night Live debut recently. Scarlett Johansson and Eva Longoria gave themselves red highlights in the last year, while Twilight actress Kristen Stewart attempted a strawberry blond. And her co-star Bryce Dallas Howard also fires up the red carpet with flaming locks.

During New York Fashion Week, the British luxury leather brand Mulberry sent models with thick-banged, cherry-colored wigs stomping around the Soho House’s rooftop pool. Yves Saint Laurent features the red-headed model Karen Elson in new ads for Opium perfume. The auburn-haired Julianne Moore is on the cover of the November issue of Allure, while Christina Hendricks, of Mad Men, who has perhaps done more to reinvigorate the color than anyone else, appears on the November cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

“Out of all the colors it makes the most statement - it infers personality,” said Lucia Mace, the stylist on Mad Men who is responsible for maintaining the locks of Joan Holloway, the hip-wiggling, smoldering executive assistant played by Hendricks. “Red is wild and sexy and powerful,” Mace said.

Recently, it’s taken on a rocker tinge as well. Cameron Mesirow, who records as Glasser, was a CMJ Music Festival darling in October. Elson famously dyed her hair red after meeting Hendricks more than a decade ago. And Florence Welch, the flame-tressed British pop-soul front woman of Florence and the Machine, has been dying her hair since she was 9, inspired by her favorite Disney character, Ariel,from The Little Mermaid.

For Hayley Williams, the front woman of pop-punk band Paramore, red is the color of rebellion. When her band was in the studio recording its breakout 2007 album, Riot!, “I decided I wanted to look like an anime character,” Williams e-mailed from a tour stop in Australia. “I had my hair three or four different colors and the orange would fade to this highlighter green around my face. That was definitely my favorite.” She has had what she called “ginger fever” since she was 14 and is no longer sure what her natural color is. Being a redhead is a “form of self-expression to me,” Williams wrote.

Mace, the Mad Men stylist, said that although Hendricks, a natural blonde, has been dying her hair since she was a preteen, the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, decidedJoan Holloway’s hair needed to match the Lucille Ball-inspired shade that was popular at the time. “We brightened up her red,” Mace said. “I get a lot of letters about her hair color asking, ‘How do I get it?’ People love that red on her.”

But Sharon Dorram, of Sally Hershberger, who has handled Nicole Kidman’s signature strawberry blond locks and Julia Roberts’ auburn tresses, said that her New York clients haven’t generally warmed to the hue. “When they see red in their hair, it freaks them out,” she said.

Nikki Ferrara, a colleague of Dorram’s, speculated that “it could be a social stigma thing.”

“Like some people think redheads are a little batty,” she added. “Or it’s one of those head-turning colors, and people don’t want that much attention from it.”