Natural Hair at New York Fashion Week 2018
Models on Rocking Natural Hair at NYFW: It "Feels Like a Victory"
Ijeoma Nwaka
After years of perming, Ijeoma Nwaka decided to go completely natural about a year ago and has been loving her hair ever since. While prepping for the ExMermaid show, hair stylists informed her that all the models would have to wear their hair straightened and slicked back.
"I wondered, 'Where does that leave me? My hair doesn't do that,'" she told us backstage.
Having to straighten her hair for the show was a legitimate concern for Nwaka, because she hadn't applied heat to her hair since going natural, and she didn't know how it would affect the overall texture moving forward.
"But then I went to the designer, [Francki Michels], for a fitting and she was like, 'No, I love your hair. Please don't let them touch it. Can you leave it like that for me?' It meant a lot to me because my hair is everything to me. It's a part of my look, and I don't really want to conform with everyone else. Even though sometimes I might get an eyebrow raised because I look different from everybody else, it's still me."
