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Your Stylist: How to rock a deep side part like Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and Kristen Stewart

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Resident Image stylist and market editor Melissa Magsaysay soothes your sartorial woes in the weekly Your Stylist blog column

Celebrities and the cool girls who want to look like them are sporting a new, but familiar, look in hair -- the deep side part.

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A part that’s an inch or two farther to the side may seem insignificant, but the way in which celebs like Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and Kristen Stewart are doing it certainly makes a statement that’s casual, flirty and reminiscent of a 1980s Valley girl.

Alba in particular has been wearing a deep side part with a starting point that sometimes looks to be looming near her ear. The part gives the hair that’s flipped over to the other side of her head some volume and a wave that looks like it’s waiting to get teased, curled and sprayed as we all did religiously through the early ‘90s.

While Alba does the deep side part during her off-duty days, girls like Lively and Stewart are really eschewing the typical middle parted, L.A boho hair and going for something more edgy and, in Lively’s case, evocative of Veronica Lake.

“They’re giving us a retro glamour that’s less formal than finger waves,” says celebrity hairstylist Scott Cunha, who styles Nicole Richie and Lucy Hale “The part is deep to the side but the rest is loose, wavy and a little undone.”

He recommends using the arch of the eyebrow as a good marker of where to start the deep side part. “You don’t want it over as far your ear!” says Cunha. Use a comb to make a clean part and rub a little volumizing mousse through the hair so give some wave and body to the hair. Otherwise a deep side part plus flat hair will leave you looking like a trendy drowned rat.

Lively’s hair and deep side part always manages to look lovely and elegant. Her long, strawberry blond locks are generally parted deeply at one side, so that about two thirds of it cascades down the side for a modern-day, more laid-back version of Lake’s famous ‘do.

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Lively’s side part isn’t quite as flippy and awkward as Alba’s and the length and wave of her hair flows much better than it would if it was stick straight.

On the other end of the spectrum, Stewart’s take on the trend is edgy and definitely a little rock ‘n’ roll. She showed up to the recent MTV Movie Awards with a deep side part and tons of body in her hair. “I loved her look at the MTV Movie Awards,” says Cunha. “She really got the whole thing right.”

In case you were feeling like flipping your hair and trying something new, sexy and slightly disheveled this summer, take a cue from these trend-setting celebs and sport a deep side part.

Send your style queries to melissa.magsaysay@latimes.com

Melissa Magsaysay

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Photos, from top: Actress Blake Lively arrives to be honored at the 2011 Time 100 Gala ceremony in New York on April 26 (credit: Lucas Jackson / Reuters); actress Jessica Alba at a dinner for Gucci in Paris in January (Getty Images); Actress Kristen Stewart arrives at the MTV Movie Awards at Universal Studios Hollywood on Sunday (Valerie Macon AFP / Getty Images).

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