The power bob
“Living Single,” the 1990s sitcom starring Queen Latifah, Kim Coles, Erika Alexander and Kim Fields as friends coming into their own in New York City, was celebrated for showcasing the multiplicity and style of young black life.
Alexander played Maxine Shaw, an intelligent, brash lawyer whose braided bob hairstyle became a powerful cultural symbol for working black women.
“It was a smash,” Alexander said. “It was not just a statement of being black, but my skin color also locked in with something as an encouragement for black women power and sexuality.”
Alexander’s own hair followed the many phases of her career. There was the relaxer she got in high school. The weaves she wore on stage — one left Alexander’s hair so damaged that she cut it off and regrew it. As cousin Pam on “The Cosby Show,” she kept a natural look. Her 1992 ABC series “Going to the Extremes” led her to Jamaica.
“They were white producers; they didn’t know what to do with my hair,” she said. “They just asked me, ‘Do you mind cutting off your hair? I had no problem with it.’ ”
After that, Alexander sought out ways to grow her hair again and went to a New York salon where a stylist introduced her to nulocs — hair made of yarn that mimicked neat dreadlocks.
When she wore the style during her audition for “Living Single,” it instantly stuck, becoming part of the Maxine Shaw persona.
“It turned out to be, in a lot of women’s minds, a revolution for how they could be inside a professional environment but yet look put together,” she said.