As "The Vampire Diaries" rolls out its first Nina Dobrev-less season -- returning to its original Season 1 sass to freshen things up and survive without its long-time leading lady -- Nina's officially ready to say goodbye to Elena Gilbert (AND Katherine Pierce AND Amara).

And to kick off her new post-"TVD" life, Nina whipped out some scissors and banged it up.

OK, OK... Nina didn't actually cut her own hair here, but she did give bangs a shot for her new Who What Wear photospread. We weren't the only ones chomping at the bit with pure excitement over this look -- turns out, Nina's pretty into it herself. So now that she's seen it can work, maybe she'll go for it after all?

"I didn’t know I could pull that off, but now I do. Who knows? I might cut my hair," she told the mag.

We support this idea 100%, for the following reasons:

First of all, she is old-school saucy with this crop.

The striped turtleneck and thick cat-eye penciling adds some '70s flare that helps us conclude once and for all that, yes, Nina's gorgeous in every decade. (Not that we didn't already know that, thanks to all the decade dances at Mystic Falls High.)

Plus, she's got that whole "Charlie's Angels"-meets-Bond girl vibe going on here. We're into it.

She SO looks like she could seduce the sh-t out of any bad guy and then single-handedly take down his parade of henchmen in a classic spy flick. And since she told WWW that she's ready to do "something dark and gritty" and wants her next series of directors to "scare the sh-t out of" her, this actually might be a good image to add to the portfolio JIC.

Basically, this is a mini-reinvention of Nina's style.

We're so used to Nina being the slammin' brunette whose hair is always perfectly straight and silky as she drapes herself in a precisely tailored outfit, but this play with textures and patterns is so fun.

And she looks so peaceful and content.

Nina had a long run as the three-pronged doppelganger series on "TVD," and now she's made the move to Los Angeles. Looks like all the sunshine is doing wonders for her.

She is definitely a unicorn.

Nina likes to call her squad the "Unicorn Gang" because the creatures -- pretty much the only mythical beings who didn't make way through the Mystic Grill during her time there, BTW -- are "mystical [and] beautiful [and] rare [and] special." Just like her.