Mariska Hargitay’s On-Trend Coquette Hair Bow Is a Sweet Nod to Late Mom Jayne Mansfield

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Mariska Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield
Mariska Hargitay is all tied up in the ribbon trend, thanks to one special person.

For her appearance on Today on Thursday, the Law & Order: SVU star, 59, wore a black ribbon in her curled half-up hairstyle. She teamed the look with a tuxedo-style outfit.

The style is having a moment in fashion, with the popularity of the dainty coquette and balletcore aesthetics on TikTok, but Hargitay revealed that she was actually inspired by her mom, the late actress Jayne Mansfield, who wore bows in her hair back in the day.

“Well can I tell you who my inspo is?” she told cohosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, who also wore a tiny white ribbon in her curls.

Related: Mariska Hargitay Sparkles in $612 Self-Portrait Dress: ‘Serving Some Sequins’

“So I just found this photo of my mother when she was 8 years old and I brought it today,” she explained, as a childhood photo of Mansfield with two bows in her pigtails appeared on the screen. “Look at her bows! And it just undid me, this photo of this little precious girl. I was like, ‘You are my inspiration.'”

Hargitay credited Guthrie for her look too — “You’re also my inspiration because I saw your bows!” she gushed — before the two tried to rope Kotb into wearing the style.

Related: Mariska Hargitay Remembers Her Famous Mom: ‘All I Have to Do Is Look in the Mirror’

“You don’t put yourself in a box. You wear a bow and you rock it baby,” Hargitay preached and then declared her new fashion mantra with a little dance: “You know what you do when you’re 60? You rock a bow.”

The phrase resonated with Guthrie who shared a video of her and Hargitay repeating it together. “Bowheads of the world unite,” she captained the post.

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Mansfield, bombshell Hollywood screen siren of the 1950s and 1960s, was killed in a car accident in 1967 at age 34. Hargitay, who was 3 at the time, was in the backseat with her two siblings, who also survived the accident.

“The way I’ve lived with loss is to lean into it,” she told PEOPLE in 2018 in a candid interview about dealing with her mother’s death. “I’m not saying it’s easy, and it certainly hasn’t been for me. There’s been a lot of darkness. But on the other side, things can be so bright.”

“Someone once said about [remembering] my mother: ‘All you have to do is look in the mirror,’ ” she shared. “She’s with me still.”