There has been much controversy in the media regarding natural hair in the past few years. One incident that specifically caught my eye took place in 2017. A well known fashion brand called Madewell, owned by J. Crew, received an enormous amount of backlash after publishing photos of an American American model and her natural hair which people described as “messy”.
People believed that they either put no effort into her hair, or didn’t care enough to find a stylist who actually knew how to style natural hair. Many people took to twitter to condemn Madewell for their actions, stating that they should have used edge control or bobby pins in her hair.
They must have thought this was the equivalent of some white girl “chic” messy bun but it’s just a mess. period.
— 👩🏿🦲 (@VASHTI_BBY) November 10, 2017
Madewell apologized and removed the photos, however I don’t believe they were obligated to. I disagree with everyone else. The messy natural hair look went with their aesthetic of their website and the message that they were trying to convey in the photoshoot. Which was being comfortable and carefree in the clothes that you wear. I personally would have been more offended if the natural haired girl was the only girl with perfect up do hair in a photoshoot where everyone else had messy hair. To me, this photoshoot represents confidence and realness, something that is not, but should be, seen in the media often.
One of the questions I have for everyone is, why does she need edge control to look beautiful? A major problem in the natural hair community is the glorification of looser hair textures and curls which fit more into the Eurocentric style. Many people in the natural hair community tend to put down women with tight and coily hair using the words, “nappy” or in this case “messy”. How this model’s hair looks in this photo is how natural hair looks without any product, heat, or chemicals, and I believe it is beautiful. To put her down for not having edge control or longer hair, defeats the whole purpose and meaning of being natural. This is what I mean when I say society’s views of beauty are broken. We as a society often shame the black women who do not have natural hair, but then criticize the women who flaunt their locks carelessly.
I think we should appreciate Madewell for realizing that natural hair is also beautiful. We shame companies for only showing black women with straight long weaves or those glorified curls, but when we finally get the appreciation we’ve been asking for, we complain about it.
I say round of applause to Madewell and J. Crew for appreciating black beauty, raw and uncut, untamed in its natural form.