Kim Kardashian Rocks Braids: What’s Your Verdict?
Just when we thought the Armenian princess had riffed as much as she could from urban culture, Kim Kardashian takes it a step further with a hairstyle switch to braids.
Perhaps on some levels long flowing braids are making a comeback. We recently spotted Solange
deejaying with an E. Badu style of braids. However, we can argue Solange is coiffure-versatile, rocking everything from afro extensions to her low cut and even hair weaves. Kardashian, on the other hand, is far from coiffure-versatile. This leads me to believe that this new sporadic look is on some levels informed by her career move as a recording artist.
News sources revealed in November that Kardashian was partnering with mega music producer/artist The-Dream for a new album. On New Year’s Eve, she debuted her first single, “Turn It Up” at a nightclub. The new recording artist tweeted a few stills from her Hype Williams-directed music video for the single–which features Kanye West–no surprise there.
To our dampened shock, sneak-peak images from the video shows Kardashian’s long silky hair re-worked into braids. Kardashian tweets, “2011 is all about trying new things and going for it! I’m starting mine with something fun and crazy!” She followed this tweet with a twit-pic captioned, “Rockin’ my Bo Derek braids.”
Funny, Kardashian makes reference to actress and model Bo Derek (who, in the 1979 flick 10 donned beaded braids while jogging on a random beach in Acapulco) rather than giving homage to the countless African women who rocked the same look pre-Bo Derek, and still are. While Kardashian isn’t the first non-Black celebrity to wear braids, (Christina Aguilera) her decision to wear the popular urban hairstyle is all the more fascinating–albeit desperate–following her earlier antics.
As much as many of us loathe talk of Kardashian at the strongest broil. We can’t escape the cultural larceny at work here. Oh, and I’ll impatiently await with coveted expectancy the commenter who chirps, “But Black women wear hair weaves!”
Tell us ladies, what’s your verdict on Kim Kardashian’s new braided look? Sound off!
–Geneva S. Thomas
She’s not black; she’s MIDDLE EASTERN! Why do people assume black people and Middle Easterners are the same thing! No! I don’t think she looks dumb, at all. She has naturally frizzy hair, and this is the only way she can manage it. End of story. We’re done. Some of you sound like a bunch of morons or first-graders or something.