In the first episode of the final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jeremiah Fisher tells his girlfriend (and, later, fiancée), Belly Conklin, “Hey, don’t ever cut your hair, okay?” As if that wasn’t enough of an impetus to chop off her locks, a broken engagement and a soul-searching trip to Paris certainly got Belly over the finish line. At the end of the penultimate episode, Belly hinted at her intentions when she walked into a Parisian salon. Now, as the show draws to a close, she is beginning a new chapter with her much shorter ’do. In the words of one very wise woman, “Claire, it’s French!”

“I was excited when I learned that Belly was getting a bob,” Lola Tung, who plays Belly, tells Vogue. “It’s nice to see her make that decision for herself, almost as a physical representation of the growth and change she’s experienced.” Jenny Han, the show’s executive producer and author of the novels that the series is based on, agrees. For Han, the haircut signals Belly stepping into herself.

“I think women often cut their hair after a breakup or when they want to let go of old baggage and signal to people that they’re ready for change,” Han says. “The idea is that if you look different, then you can feel different.”