Plaits, Please

As traditional African braiding techniques transcend the beauty shop, Alexis Okeowo considers the crossroads of culture and coiffure.

I REMEMBER THE HARDNESS OF the chair, the drone of the television in the background, and the insistent, sometimes painful tugging of my hair into neat and uniform cornrows. (“I’m tender-headed!” I begged.) I was getting my hair braided for the first time, and my parents had dropped me off at the braider’s apartment with a promise to return later. When, exactly, they couldn’t say, because trying to predict how long your braids will take is like trying to game the lottery. Since that afternoon in Montgomery, Alabama, I have sat between the legs, or under the unflappable arms, of black women in places as disparate as Brooklyn and Eritrea to have my hair braided.

So it was thrilling to see the product of the intimate ritual that has long been the provenance of beauty shops and private homes on Christian Dior’s fall couture runway, as Queens-born model Indira Scott closed the show with her waist-skimming braids strung up with beads and pulled into a high ponytail. Later in the week, Tracee Ellis Ross’s cornrows glimmered in the front row at Valentino.