How To Get Allie's 'Off Campus' "Disconnected Shag" Haircut

Endless screenshots of wolf cuts and long shags currently dominate beauty mood boards, all in a collective effort to replicate Allie Hayes’ iconic look from Off Campus before heading back to school. The only problem? Those copycat styles are completely missing the secret ingredient that keeps her crown looking so beautifully weightless.

Perfecting this generation’s version of “The Rachel” before the first day back on campus meant going straight to the source: Debra Wiebe, the hair department head for the Prime Video series. As it turns out, Allie’s signature chop worn by Mika Abdalla — often referred to on TikTok as the “Allie Cat cut” or “French-girl fringe” — is far from traditional. The expert defines the highly requested shape as a “disconnected shag,” a specific technique that prevents the middle section from dropping flat and losing its volume.

Unlike the trendy butterfly cut — an update on the 1970s classic feathered look that seamlessly blends short layers all the way to the tips — this technique deliberately leaves the sections separate.

“If you try and blend this short length all the way to the bottom, you’re going to lose the hair in the middle,” Wiebe says, noting that a standard blend is precisely how a modern look accidentally reverts into a retro throwback. “It doesn’t turn into a Farrah Fawcett [hairstyle], where it’s all layered all the way down. It’s a little more disconnected.”

By keeping the crown drastically shorter, the top section maintains its puffiness and curtain-bang lift without getting weighed down, all while the bottom length hangs freely beneath it.

How To Request The Look

To get this right at your next salon appointment, you just need to tell your stylist you want a “disconnected shag.” Make sure to specify that you want to keep all the length at the bottom, rather than blending it seamlessly into the top layers. That way, you get all that bouncy lift up top without accidentally thinning out the rest of your hair.

Your Cheat Sheet For All-Day Volume

Once you have the cut down, keeping that messy-chic texture alive through a day of classes requires a serious game plan because, as Wiebe points out, “not everybody has that luxury without putting some product in it.”

Copying the effortless look requires dampening strands of hair with a cocktail of mousse and a volumizing spray to get things moving, which should then “get scrunched to make that curl work and really get that root lift.”

To keep your layers from totally quitting on you between lectures, just replicate the show’s genius behind-the-scenes refresh routine. Wiebe reveals that to prevent the bounce from drooping on set throughout the day, Abdalla had to flip her head upside down “to keep the volume, and root spray to keep it up,” finishing the vibe by taking a hot tool to it “just in random places” so it stays perfectly imperfect.