00:00Welcome to Beauty School, a new column about the history behind today's trending beauty.
00:04I'm India, contributing beauty editor at Essence Magazine, and we're at the headquarters,
00:09and today we're uncovering the very Black history behind hair fashion.
00:16From Halle Berry and Natalie DeZell in the 1997 film BAPS, to Monique and Taraji P. Henson in the
00:222004 film Hair Show. Hair fashion has had an extreme hold on Black beauty culture since the
00:2890s and early 2000s. Meanwhile, hair magazines and posters were spread across the hair salon,
00:33with everyday hairstyles looking like bouffant and sheen sculptures. Since then, hair fashion has
00:38been a dying art. We're here with Malik, who's one of the artists leading the revival.
00:44Hi Essence. Hey boo. Hello. So first I want to ask, what kind of inspired you to get into hair fashion?
00:52So I grew up in a hair salon with my aunt. She does hair. She used to be in hair shows a lot. I'm from
00:56Richard, Virginia, so that was kind of a thing down there. So I grew up watching her do hair,
01:01growing up in the salon, getting out of school, basically just watching what she does, watching
01:06the styles from back in the day. So I've always had an interest in hair. I just usually would do
01:12things with braids and whatnot. So recently, probably about in the last year or so, I got more into
01:17actually styling hair, but more from like an artistic view. A lot of these styles were wearable back then,
01:23but now these days I don't really do them as often, so I just thought it would be a really good way to
01:26revive something that died out a long time ago, especially since it highlights, you know,
01:30black creativity as well. And what are kind of like the references behind your work? How would
01:34you describe your work in general as well? Honestly, whenever I do wigs, I have a few reference points
01:39that I'll do, but then I'll kind of just like freak it. So a lot of them is more so like the sculptural,
01:45big styles. I like a lot of like, we call them banana peels, which is what this is. I like a lot of like hard
01:51curls, a lot of like updos, things that basically defy gravity. I feel like black hair is meant to
01:56defy gravity, even how our natural hair is. So I feel like styles like this kind of like mimic that.
02:02And even like in a lot of like post-colonial African hairstyles are like very big and avant-garde,
02:08well, what we would call avant-garde, but what they do culturally. So I just feel like black hair is
02:13meant to elevate and, you know, cause some attention and some stir. So kind of going back to the 90s,
02:21I feel like back then it was kind of like the standard for hairstylists to know how to do these
02:26hairstyles. But over time, it's kind of become like a dying art like you mentioned earlier. So why would
02:33you say that these types of hair fashions, like these bouffant, gravity-defying hair looks,
02:38aren't popular as much smaller? So I actually brought this up to my aunt who used to do these
02:44styles. She said the trends had just changed. Women wanted more like wearable styles, quote unquote.
02:50But the thing is with me, I feel like, you know, you could work jobs back then with like
02:54gravity-defying hair. So I just kind of feel like we've kind of assimilated in a way. That's kind
02:58of how I feel. I feel like, but also black people are like trendsetters. So our styles do change over
03:04time. But I do feel like this is something that we should have kept alive, especially because it's
03:07ways like the highlight black hair artists and stuff. So why do you kind of choose like certain
03:12colors? Because I feel like your work has a lot of color, whereas like some old school styles might
03:18just be like all black. Of course they had color too, but why do you feel like color is like essential
03:24to your work? I like color. I like my hair being black, but when I do hair and wigs, I like color.
03:30Other people always look at basically my model's Instagram or if I know them personally, I'm like,
03:34what colors would this person look good in? So I base it off of your undertones. So with you,
03:39since you have like more grussel green undertones, I pick more like cooler shades to do on you. Or
03:43someone who had like warmer combustion, I would do like maybe like a few, like maybe like some hot
03:47oranges, some hot reds. So I just go off basically your undertones. And I was a makeup artist before I
03:52did hair, so I kind of still have that knowledge of the undertones for people, especially black people.
03:58So can you tell me a little bit about why you chose this style? I know it's not all the way done yet, but
04:02just walk me through like your thought process and choosing like the color and like the shape for
04:08this one. So for this specific style, I was thinking about just doing like a big curl flipped hybrid,
04:14should I recall it? I don't really have names for myself. I just basically feel it out as I make
04:20it on the person. So each one of my wigs, I never really plan. I kind of let them come to me. The only
04:27thing I really plan when I do my hair wigs is the colors. And I just let creativity take over,
04:33which I feel like it's always a little bit more organic. And you create something that, you know,
04:37you can have references, but it's good to make something that's like yours as well. You can fuse
04:40together a bunch of stuff and just make it unique. So where do you kind of draw your inspiration and
04:44references from? So a lot of the inspiration I get is more so from like the older Detroit artists.
04:50I remember I watched a documentary on Hair Wars. That really was an inspiration for me,
04:55because a lot of the Detroit styles were very extravagant. You know, they could work with those
04:59hairstyles. They'll be like bank tellers with big hair. And you know, they had a whole underground
05:04hair artist scene. And the styles that they would do were just very crazy. I feel like they were
05:08almost like movie quality types of like artistic styles. So I draw a lot of inspiration from a lot
05:13of like North American, like like very North hairstylists, Detroit, Chicago, even New York
05:20stylists were amazing. I have a couple of New York hairstylist friends who used to do hair shows as well
05:24back in the day. So the east, the northeast and the north has a very big history in hair. So I draw
05:31a lot of my inspiration from those people. Why is resurrecting these hairstyles important to you?
05:37It's important to me because it's something I saw growing up watching my aunt do it. And I kind of
05:43actually witnessed it dying out as I got older. And it's something that I missed because I was always
05:48enthralled by these like beautiful black women who would come in with giant hair, like really crimped hard hair.
05:53So when I got older, I thought that would be the standard. And you know, at 28 years old,
05:59I see a lot of things have changed. So it would be a really amazing thing to bring it back. And I feel
06:04like a lot of black hair nowadays, black hairstylists nowadays really know how to do like wigs and lace
06:09fronts. And I feel like this was something that they could do to just like branch out because you
06:14can do a wig and a lace front. But I feel like if you do hair art, you can be in movies, set design,
06:18and it's a lot more fun, in my opinion, than just, you know, slapping a wig on.
06:34So thank you Malik for giving me this 1999 hairstyle and thanks for watching. We'll be back with the next
07:04lesson on Essence.com. See you then.
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