Tyra Banks: My Natural Hair Almost Cost My Career
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From Tyra Bank’s Official Instagram Account (tyrabanks)
For years, there has been an outrage concerning the way women of color are sidelined in the beauty industry. The beauty market still continues to ignore a huge section of its market, for instance, many hair stylists don’t know how to work with natural hair and they rarely produce foundations with a wide enough color range. For a model, this can be damaging as it affects your ability to work as Tyra Banks narrates.
Fired Because of Natural Hair
Tyra Banks’ eight-year-long career at Victoria Secrets has been iconic. In a recent interview, Tyra Banks revealed that her iconic role as Victoria Secret’s Angel almost never came to reality for this very reason. Tyra is one of the most memorable models in Victoria Secret’s four-decade existence but she didn’t have the easiest time breaking into the industry, all because of her African-American textured hair.
Tyra Banks was the first black woman to feature on the cover of the Victoria Secrets catalog and land the coveted spot as the Angel. That’s how her early career found her making history with the modeling agency. But it was a challenging journey and all of that almost didn’t happen because the hairdresser didn’t know what to do with her hair, so she was sent home.
Still a Long Way to Go
A year later, Banks tried out the Victoria Secrets again. However, this time it was different because she hired her own hair stylist instead of relying on the agency’s stylists. In an interview with W Magazine, Tyra Banks says that she had to figure out how to make sure that she looked good at work to avoid losing her once in a lifetime opportunity to be a Victoria Secrets model.
Tyra Banks would soon rise to become one of the most popular models on Victoria Secrets at which point she used her influence to make the brand hire a hairstylist who knew how to work her hair. She went on to work with the brand for several years. Tyra Banks was happy to see the brand step up to accommodate her but says that the industry still has a long way to go when it comes to diversity.
Author: Erica Barton
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