Braids are nothing new to Black women, but recently the most stylish Black women I know are wearing a particular style of cornrows unlike anything I’ve ever seen. These freestyle braids take the shape of mesmerizing twirls, swirls, and symbols that emulate hieroglyphic script hiding a celestial message. Unlike traditional cornrows that run straight back, freestyle braids follow patterns inspired by visuals like adornments on welded iron gates, stars, and Adinkra symbols (a pictorial language originating in West Africa). The style isn’t only taking off in my group chat: #Freestylebraids has over 83 million views on TikTok with videos of stylists across the world turning blown-out or curly Black hair into geometric works of art. Freestyle braids were even showcased at the recent Aveda Congress, where top hairstylists from around the world met to celebrate the year’s biggest hair trends.
Like many trends, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when or from where this style originated. Black women have been braiding their hair in cornrows for centuries and, to my Nigerian-American eye, the freestyle braids are reminiscent of pre-colonial coiffures featured in anthropology books. “There’s a constant exchange between the African continent and its diaspora which can be explored through hair,” says Marie Celine Agossa who created the Instagram page Yua Hair, as a curated mood board of African hairstyles throughout history. As Allure previously reported, at the Aveda Congress, the brand’s global artistic director of texture, Renée Gadar, showed a collection of braids “as a tribute to centuries of stories passed down from generation to generation.” This included a freestyle look that featured more than 2,000 golden beads embellishments, floor-length braids arranged in a “roadmap,” and swooped cornrows to symbolize the waves that carried ships of people stolen from their homes. Popular African musicians — including Rema, Tyla, Amarae, and Ayra Starr — have been wearing iterations of freestyle braids like these, only furthering the trend’s explosion.
Chelsie Lopez