When I got my hair dreadlocked ahead of
New York fashion week, I had some pushback from people in the industry worried
that I wouldn’t get jobs – the suggestion was that I might look “too black”.
But I enjoy being different and standing out – so I decided to keep them and
take my chances.
Two days later, my agents
in New York called to say Coach had cast me to open their spring/summer 2018 show at
New York. I couldn’t believe it – I’ve walked in other shows in the past, but
this was a career-changer. I went on to walk for Miu Miu in Paris and Bottega Veneta in Milan, which is a classic
Italian brand not known for using edgy models. I was thrilled – a girl with
dreads walking for brands like those, that’s crazy.
There’s a lot of politics tied up in black hair.
When Marc Jacobs sent a bunch of white girls down the
runway with dreads and everyone cried “racism”, I didn’t see it
that way. Actions like his create normalcy, so now if we black girls want to
wear dreads in the workplace, then white people aren’t going to call it
“ghetto”. The labelling of Kim Kardashian’s cornrows as new and edgy “boxer
braids” is a slightly different story – it shows no respect for the hairstyle’s
cultural heritage and people were right to be angry.
Dreads do still carry negative connotations in
society, at least in America. Remember when actor and musician Zendaya had
dreads and US TV host Giuliana Rancic said she looked like she smelled of
marijuana? But just because some people assume having dreads means
you must be a weed smoker – which I’m not – it wasn’t going to stop me getting
them. I’ve always been keen on changing up my look and my hair; for me it’s about
self-expression.
In the past, fashion liked black girls to have
really long weaves, or really straight hair to emulate white women and “fit
in”. It’s something that affects female models far more than men. But more
recently, black women have been saying, “No, I’m not going to straighten my
hair.” There is a growing sense of pride in African Americans and it’s having a
trickle-down effect into fashion.
Fashion doesn’t create trends, it follows, so it
makes sense that right now they’re casting more black and Asian models due to
our buying power as a collective. But without many of us working at the shows,
hairstylists sometimes struggled to know what to do with our hair.
It’s a
catch-22: they’re hairstylists, so they should know how to work with black hair,
but a lot of the time they’re scared because they don’t want to be the one who
messes up the black girl’s hair. I’ve been backstage at a show where a stylist
said to me, “I don’t want to do your hair.” The other black girls and I were
the last to have our hair done because no one would touch us.
Aighewi at the Coach show, NYFW September
2017. Photograph: Pixelformu/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock. But that was three years ago – now, they don’t have
an option. And it’s been a joint effort, with casting directors like Ashley
Brokaw and Anita Bitton, as well as stylists like Karl Templer and Katie Grand
– outliers in positions of power – taking a chance by casting diverse models in
what might typically be all-white shows.
Hairstylists are starting to think, “I’ve got to
learn this or I’m not going to get hired.” Now, when I talk to stylists,
they’re saying, “What are the best products you use on your hair?” I did a show
this season in Milan and the stylist didn’t have the right product. By the time
I got to Paris, she had it. At Miu Miu, where over half the models were black,
backstage they had all the right products.
But you have to meet the industry halfway. I always
make sure my dreads are super-clean and neat, so in some ways they still look
classic. I also got my dreads really long – that way you can do lots of other
styles with them. Even though I’m pushing my agenda, I’m giving them things to
work with.
Thanks to social media, it’s easier for models to
speak up. When I was signed, in 2010, my agents would tell me, “You need to
shut up and stand there and look pretty.”
Now, with platforms like Instagram, where people
have their own space to be vocal, it’s cool to be yourself. Agents encourage
girls to have more personality; clients want that now. Just being pretty
doesn’t work any more. And now, I’m having so much more success – the
industry’s finally caught up to me, I actually make sense in it now.
Next year I suspect there are going to be more
girls with dreads on the catwalk, with more of us saying: “I like my hair this
way, I like my hair curly.” They’re still going to cast you. If a girl is dope,
a girl is dope. If you stand by who you are, the world has to take notice.
As told to Ellie Violet Bramley
Source: The Guardian.