‘Da Bobby Cut’ is KC’s hottest hairstyle as fans mimic Royals shortstop’s look
As a stylist at a Sports Clips in Overland Park, Kayla Borum has been getting a specific request from customers multiple times each day.
“Give me ‘The Bobby Witt.”
“We’re like, we know exactly what you’re talking about,” Borum said.
The hottest hairstyle in Kansas City is the updated version of a half-century old style that Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. has these days.
DeJuan Bonds, who cuts hair for the players at Kauffman Stadium and is owner of the Purple Label Luxury Barber Shop in Overland Park, created the look. But he prefers a different name.
“Da Bobby Cut,” Bonds said. “That sounds fire.”
The mullet was all the rage in the 1970s and 1980s, and many people who had that hairstyle often cringe, laugh or both when looking at pictures of themselves from those days.
“It’s a mullet,” Witt said matter-of-factly. “It’s been around for a while.”
Bonds, however, put a new spin on it.
“I think the tighter you take it, it kind of modernizes it,” Bonds said. “Because when the mullet was done years ago, it wasn’t done so closely cut on the side. So with the with the zero (clipper guard size), tapered look on the side, it definitely allows it to fit in today’s hairstyle world. Back years ago, it wasn’t a zero, tight mullet. It was more of three on the side, two on the side.
“A mullet is a mullet, but with today’s style of cutting, you kind of create it for it to fit, and it won’t look so much like Jim McMahon’s mullet.”
Go with the flow
Like Borum, Bonds has seen interest in the hairstyle spike.
Borum said boys from 2 years old to college-age men ask for their hair to be cut like the Royals star.
“All the kids these days always say they wanted a low taper,” she explained. “It’s like the cool thing to do. So they taper it on the sides, and then they do enough that they can kind of just push it back like he does on the top, and then it’s longer in the back, which they call the flow, by the way. The flow, is a new term that we have had to learn.”
The is a specific reason why the flow, which was once known as the “party in the back” (as opposed to “business in the front,” where the hair was trimmed shorter) is a hit.
“Flow means long enough that it flips really cool with your hat,” Borum said.
Hoz to Mahomes to Witt
It’s probably premature to say the mullet is making a comeback. Bonds chalks up interest to Witt being one of the brightest stars in baseball.
“Every kid wants to mimic who is the face of MLB, the face of the city,” Bonds said. “So it’s what they want.”
Whether you call it “Da Bobby Cut” or “The Bobby Witt,” it’s the latest Kansas City athlete’s coiffure to be replicated on the heads of fans.
“It’s cool to see kids do that,” Witt acknowledged
Borum recalled the progression of popular hairstyles over her 14 years on the job.
“I got the Justin Bieber at the beginning, and then the huge 2014-2015 probably for about at least three years with The Hosmer, which was called the Euro Hawk, meaning a European Mohawk, because it’s blended,” she noted of former Royals star Eric Hosmer.
“So I did a lot of those. His was a little easier, though, because you have to have like enough hair to do like the flow in the back for the modern mullet.
“And then we get the Patrick Mahomes. But I think that the thing is, a lot of kids feel like they need to perm their hair to get the Patrick Mahomes, and a lot of moms are like, ‘No, we’re not keeping up with perms. We are not doing that.’”
Borum chuckled as she shared that story. Mahomes did away with his Mohawk cut after the Chiefs lost to the Eagles Super Bowl LIX, so no unnecessary perms are required these days.
However, replicating Witt’s look requires more than a one-time visit to a stylist.
“Because it’s a taper, they have to come in every so many weeks,” Borum said. “They have to keep that taper looking good.”
