Hair there and everywhere: the story of Grace Mugabe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
By Robert Mukondiwa
The adage has been that beauty has to be skin deep; that it is in the eyes of the beholder, and most notably that those who possess it are not yet even born!Either way, as we live in the here and now, many things have been used as yardstick of defining beauty. Nails, facial features, waistline, the bust, posterior you name it. And now the issue of hair has once again come into the fray.
With the advent of Brazilian hair to complement weave and other synthetic hairs, the African woman finds herself forking out hundreds of dollars, even thousands a year each, to acquire the hair and with it the Western standard of hair beauty.
But can one not attain fully fledged beauty without having to purchase hair from the South Americans? Can African original hair not achieve that highest stage of aesthetic development that women in Africa can feel comfortable with?
Zimbabwe’s First Lady Grace Mugabe has done it. With her thick bound hairy caterpillars with a colour scheme blended between oak, redwood, and ashen to ebony, she decided to go for the Afrocentric dreadlocks. Proudly African she is!
The world and history are pregnant with revolutions. The fall of the Berlin Wall brought the Cold War crushing down, Hiroshima ended World War 2, and the death of an Archduke sparked a war of the world.
And when Grace Mugabe sauntered for the first time in public with her dreadlocks at the heart of the last decade she sparked a fashion revolution in her wake!
The walls of prejudice around sporting dreadlocks exploded and were torn down never again to rise.
The question is what is beauty amongst the feminine of African origin with regards to hair. Grace had beauty in spite of not having weaves or extensions and that did not diminish her in her ‘dreadlock’ years.
The locks helped accentuate her features and looks. Running alongside her face, they helped draw attention to her face and how much of a thief she really is. Yes, that painting she stole from Picasso and used for a face; a true African beauty and amazingly graceful African looks. Natural African hair manipulated to compete on the global stage. Through them people caught attention of her more intricate features.
A velvety smooth skin and rich creamy caramel undertones of a palate finished off in a godly craft that gives her the colour of wild honey.
