H&M Under Fire For Featuring Young Model With ‘Messy’ Natural Hair In New Campaign
H&M has come under fire by people on social media after a young black model was pictured on its site with what many felt was inappropriately styled natural hair.
A screenshot of the young girl modeling a floral printed hoodie started circulating on Twitter and Instagram on Thursday when some started noticing how her hair was left looking “messy” in a pulled back bun. One of the biggest critiques was made by celebrity hairstylist Vernon Francois, who blamed the incident on professionals who were incapable of styling black hair.
“This beautiful young girl’s #kinky hair appears to have had very little to no attention yet all of her counterparts have clearly sat in front of someone who was more [than] capable of styling other hair textures,” Francois captioned a screenshot on his Instagram. “My heart breaks imagining yet another girl from my community sitting in front of a mirror being ignored by the team around her, left to her own devices because someone didn’t know how to handle her texture.”
Video: How to Tame Your Kinky, Coily, Curly and Wavy Hair
“It’s breathtaking to me that not one person looked at this shot and had the same reaction that the internet seems to be feeling since the campaign broke,” he wrote. “THAT IS AN ISSUE.”
Plenty of others took to Twitter to share their thoughts about the model’s hair.
shainanigans@SimplyShai_xo
Excuse me @hm I just want to talk, because natural is fine but not doing her hair properly/at all is not…
Shannon Sheree@ShannonSheree
Shawda’ Love@ShawdaaaaH&M AT IT AGAIN
They wrong for that. Where the child mama? I hope she sue them for public humiliation, defamation of character, and discrimination
They could had a stylist touch this child hair. Pathetic
Ngl this had me FUMING!! I don’t understand even if the parents were dumb enough to leave their child’s hair like this which I doubt. H&M is one of the biggest fashion retail stores in the world. They couldn’t do anything about her hair?! For their own site! pic.twitter.com/ANytbZG6q9
— JujuJ🇬🇧🇬🇲🇸🇳•📍🇸🇪 (@jatoujanneh) September 20, 2019
Dushane’s Food@GyalfriendH&M intentionally did this btw…for this exact reaction and all the other kids hair being messy is intentional…all of this was planned by a skilled marketing department.
Others had a different perspective on the ad and shared screenshots of the other young girls photographed for the kids campaign — all of the young models featured had their hair sloppily pulled back or left down with some frizz.
They call me@Ic_ibzLet’s add context https://twitter.com/_BlackDalilah/status/1174985922099732480?s=19 …
Jen@_BlackDalilah
Replying to @Unkle_KYes!
I don’t know why they decided to just call the poor black girl out
Hotgirlsummer is over@BaiiDa
Honestly I was upset after seeing just the black girl.
But then I took my time to check the rest of the kids collection, and they violated every single kidsmh
‘s other TweetsSome even criticized those taking aim at the black model, in particular, arguing the callouts targeted specifically at her could be perpetuating the idea that her natural hair isn’t beautiful enough for the campaign while the messy look on other models hasn’t caused the same outrage.
Rigaud@ashliberaalIt’s very telling that you lot plucked the black girl out to ridicule her hair when all the other kids on the H&M site look like this
Says a lot about you tbh.
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I actually like that her hair isn’t perfect. It made me feel more comfortable with my own imperfections. So, what do you want Twitter–for people to accept you as you are and not feel pressured to have to look perfect all the time, or for all models in ads to look unnaturally perfect? Can’t have it both ways.
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Wasn’t there a yahoo story about “how brave” a girl was for wearing messy natural hair?
A 10-year-old girl in Nashville got made fun of for wearing her natural hair to school. The next day, she filmed an inspiring video about how she would embrace it anyway.A 10-year-old girl in Nashville got made fun of for wearing her natural hair to school. The next day, she filmed an inspiring video about how she would embrace it anyway.
