Black beauty on full display

Trade show showcases ethic hair in a big way, writes Malin Fexehaj

‘IT’S a hairdresser’s fashion week,” said Dwight Eubanks, who had just stepped off the stage from judging the Champion of Weaves competition at the Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show in Atlanta, which sees about 30 000 attendees come together over a three-day stretch to what is likely the largest multi-cultural beauty trade show in the world.

They are part of a community that has formed around this event, which offers hairstylists, makeup artists and attendees the space to create and showcase the styles that reflect a celebration of the versatility of black hair. “We don’t have a show on this level where we, as stylists, are able to get educated like this,” said Anya Parker, who has been attending the show for 10 years from Memphis.

“I will probably come here until I’m dead and gone.”

It all started over 70 years ago.

Nathaniel Bronner studied business at Morehouse College in the 1930s, but it took a literal sign for him to realise his true calling.

“Beauty: the depressionproof business,” it read.

So he decided to go to cosmetology school in the historically black neighbourhood of Sweet Auburn in Atlanta and soon started a company with his brother, selling the hair products from their sister’s salon on his newspaper sales route.

The next step was a hair trade show. Their first took place in 1947 in the basement of a YMCA in Atlanta, drawing 40 exhibitors and hairstylists from local salons and 300 attendees.

The event may not have seemed significant. But it was. African-americans interested in creating consumer products reacted to their exclusion from mainstream companies by building a parallel beauty industry focused on hair. It resulted in self-made successes, including Annie Turnbo Malone, a child of former slaves who sold her wares in the early

20th century, and Malone’s protégée, Madam CJ Walker, the first black millionaire in America.

The Bronners’ become a big player in this ecosystem.

The Bronner Bros., now still family run by some of the heirs, has become a cultural touchstone for African-americans in the industry and beyond, with notable guest speakers having included the Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson.

It was a stand-in for the black beauty industry in the Chris Rock movie Good Hair, which, among other things, explores whether the desire for straight hair reflects a Eurocentric standard of beauty.

While the show may have gotten its bearings at a time when straightening was the main process for styling black hair, that was never the case at Bronner Bros.

The show was an event that created a space for black men and black women who are still largely ignored by the mainstream beauty industry.

Each year, African-american women spend about $7.5 billion (R89bn) on beauty products, according to findings from Essence’s Smart Beauty panel in 2009.

Black women spend twice as much on skin care products and 80% more money on cosmetics than the overall market.

“The general market didn’t really wake up to it until basically the statistical data came out,” said James Bronner, Nathaniel Bronner’s youngest son and the trade show director of Bronner Bros.

The African-american market is beginning to be noticed: L’oréal started a Women of Color Lab and Paul Mitchell announced their new line targeting