Over 20 000 people work as black hair stylists and their creative services are in great demand. Judith Watt reports on the growth of glamour coiffure
IT is a common claim among South African whites that “blacks” are the people who really know about style. They say it, but how many of them really believe it, as they thumb through the pages of overseas glossies and dissolve in a puddle of wannabe grief over Westwood, Gaultier and Versace?
Because all indications are that black South Africans are leading the way in terms of real design creativity within the arena of hair styling.
“Look, there are well over 20 000 hairstylists working in the black hair industry,” says Nkulukazi Ramong, executive director of Adhasa — the Afro Hairdressing and Beauty Association of South Africa. Her salon, O Beautiful Black Hair, in Diepkloof sees hundreds of clients every month, demanding anything from Fassie-like braiding to a Felicia: that short sharp style that first saw the light of day with punk but which now is the trademark of the black female corporate woman along with shoulder pads and pencil skirts.
But even in hairstyling, Felicia faces competition from her b’te noir: Oprah Winfrey is, according to Faiek Domingo, general manager of Alex Hair, one of the most important role models for the 25 plus black South African woman this year: “Naomi is too thin and bony; Oprah has the right bosom and curves for local women to identify with. Her shoulder length hair looks good and is easy to manage. We find more and more women going for the hair extensions. And they won’t have synthetic hair either — it has to be human.”
So while Tina Turner thinks local is lekker and gets her hair from Durban, local women are wearing the locks of Hong Kong Chinese, whose hair is imported to South Africa by the ton. Just another reflection of snobbery over imported fashion?
“All the inspiration comes from America,” says Domingo, whether it be Robin Givens, Whitney Houston or Oprah. “There are very few local stylists who are really original: just as in the fashion industry, styles are taken from overseas magazines and copied. Right now there is no specific look that is really South African.”
But hang on a minute: if there are over 20 000 hairdressers, surely some of them must be doing something original? The importance of convention begins to appear: Boom Shaka are okay with their long braids, but Abashante’s Queentin, Tshola, Zanele and Hazel, with their androgynous shaven heads in the “pomade” style go too far: “We South African women want to be like our Afro-American and Caucasian sisters,” says Happiness Mokhine, who at 24 opens opens her own franchise of Alex Hair in Kempton Park in January.
“We are getting over the husband syndrome and are doing it for ourselves. If you’re in a corporate environment, you’ve got to look well groomed. Abashante are eccentric and daring. They are rebels. If you have your hair like that, everyone will stop and stare at you,” says Happiness. But a spokesperson for Arthur, who produces and manages Abashante, says “everyone’s doing it now. It’s too much. All these bald girls.” Nkulukazi agrees: the pomade style for girls is one of her most popular requests.
While the white high priests and priestesses of fashion generally bemoan the stagnant state of the local fashion industry, the black hair business, with all its permutations — the S Curl, the German, the pomade, braids, cornrows, extensions, bobs and Felicia’s — is booming.
“It’s a multi-million-rand industry,” says Michael Conlin, director of education and training at the Hairdressing and Cosmetology Services Industry Education and Training Board. “Stylists have flooded the market, from the untrained working in tin shacks or under awnings at the side of the road, to the top salons. There are literally thousands of salons in Gauteng alone. Now nurses are becoming stylists and black men are turning to the profession more and more.”
Alex Hair, which opened in 1978 in Soweto, has 14 franchisees and a plush head office in Sandhurst, turns over — well, Dopmingo won’t say, but admits that they’re “worth a lot. A franchisee can turn over a million bucks a year,” he estimates. “Clients will spend anything from R60 to R150 or more.” Two years ago they conducted a survey through the Industrial Council of South Africa: he claims that 80% of the black target population of Gauteng are Alex Hair customers.
Happiness Mokhine believes it’s affirmative action that has really boosted the industry: now black men and women can aspire to — and achieve — virtually anything and within the corporate world, grooming is all. Conlin puts it down to self-esteem, but it is interesting that the same explosion in creativity hasn’t happened in the white sector.
Parallels can be drawn to the revolution in hair styles which took place in Paris 200 years ago after the Reign of Terror, when one off, individual looks in hair were de rigueur. The trauma of revolution had passed, society was in transition and hair was a statement of individuality, whether you had your hair dressed ‘ la Caracalla, ‘ la Titus, ‘ la Brutus, Athene, Helene or Aphrodite. It was an explosion of relief after the years of the guillotine, but the styles identified strongly with a political movement — in this case the classical democracies of Greece and Rome. And despite the talk of African style, it is to the Afro-Americans living in the so-called largest democracy in the world that local black men and women are looking.
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