In the first installment of Vogue’s video series Hairdos, Jawara and Tracee Ellis Ross take us through a modern interpretation of the timeless updo which the pair have dubbed an “Afro-Billy.”
. He diffuses it dry, and Ross uses a pick at the roots for added volume.
Though the 49-year-old actor’s head of curls serves as inspiration for many, she notes that it’s been a journey embracing it. As a girl, she longed for the hair of her peers, so she visited a salon weekly to get a relaxer and blowout. “I beat my hair into submission. It was dry and fried and dead and tired,” she recalls. Her hair started to break.
For the “Afro-billy,” Jawara plaits three braids at Ross’s temples. To add extra volume to the updo, he cuts a hair donut in half, then partly unrolls it to create the shape of his pleasing. He bobby pins the padding to Ross’s hair and coifs her curls around it, creating a sort of crown while leaving some pieces loose for a hint of texture.
“I definitely have seen some change in the fashion industry as opposed to when I first started. I remember being backstage and no one being able to work on textured, Black hair,” Jawara reflects. “There are a lot who still don’t know, but I do feel like there are people who are making a real effort to figure out.”
Ross notes the “new appreciation for authenticity” versus fetishization, though she adds that there are still few stylists who “can do Black hair and know how to do it with variation, possibility, and creativity.” She cites the “remnants of respectability politics” as one aspect that affects which Black styles are appropriate or accessible. "For Black women there is so much connected to our hair. It’s such a sacred thing, particularly if you’re someone who wears wigs or weaves.
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