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We’re still gathering our thoughts about Us after seeing it this past weekend. It was many things, including a rarity in the horror drama due to the fact that the subjects in the film were all Black. Refreshing, right?
It was also a rarity when it comes to getting to see Sisterlocks on screen through Lupita Nyong’o‘s character of “Adelaide.” They stylish wig was put together by hairstylist Camille Friend, who worked with Nyong’o previously on Black Panther, helping to craft her Bantu knots and carefully coiffed afro for that film. According to Friend, it was actually Nyong’o who made the look a must for her character, not director Jordan Peele.
“Jordan is one of the best filmmakers of our time. He’s really an awesome, awesome guy. I can’t wait to do another film with him, but a lot of my dialogue for Lupita’s look was really with her,” Friend told Page Six.
“We came up with the Sisterlock [hairstyle] because she wanted to do something that was natural, plus I love it because it’s nothing that has been seen on camera before,” she added. “We’re always trying to push the envelope and do things that are different, even within the natural [hair] genre. It represents her as a woman. It’s really modern and what people are doing now.”
The alternative was of course the TWA worn by “Red.” It was both stylish and unkempt at the same time. According to Friend, even when Nyong’o wasn’t in the wig, somebody always was.
“One thing that was interesting about ‘Us,’ we had to save so many looks,” she said. “Say Lupita was in her ‘good look’ — we had to have somebody in her ‘bad look’ because Jordan always wanted someone over her shoulder.”
As for Nyong’o, she recently told Net-a-Porter that she is so committed to natural styles, on-screen and off, because she knows the beauty and history attached to them.
“I don’t feel defined by my hair, and I think that’s why I like to play with it,” she said. “I remember when I was a teenager in Kenya, I had relaxed hair and I decided on a whim that I was going to cut it all off and grow my hair natural. I’d been going to the same hairstylist for years – he was a Kenyan, like me, and when I went natural, he didn’t know what to do with it. He was like, ‘They don’t teach us how to style natural hair in school.’ There’s been a whole revolution, led by African America for sure, where we are embracing our natural hair texture and returning to a past glory.”
