FKA Twigs Launches Instagram Magazine Celebrating Black Hair

FKA Twigs: queen of baby hairs, queen of our hearts, and now, queen of Instagram magazines. Earlier this week, the songstress launched such a publication called AVANTgarden that is all about black hair.

The first issue of the ‘zine is titled, “Roots. Shock. Beauty.” Since its launch four days ago, it has garnered close to 42,000 hits. (But who’s counting?)

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The ‘zine uses the swipe feature to go through “pages,” and is resplendent with the visual iconography that any black woman would recognize — and have her own stories about. And it’s that black universality that is exactly Twigs’s point. “It was really fun to look at the heritage of braids because of course, different braids mean different things,” she explained in a recent interview with Dazed.

Refreshingly frank, Twigs (née Tahliah Debrett Barnett) talks about the practical aspect of bringing her vision to Instagram as opposed to publishing it on a blog or even in print. “As far as I’m aware, no one’s done a monthly magazine with a beautiful layout and thought of it that way on Instagram.” It’s an interesting medium choice for a notoriously private star (“I’ve struggled to feel comfortable on social media…It feels so intrusive and weird to me,” she's said). But to Twigs’s credit, she also did say that she’d be interested in a print version of AVANTgarden or an actual a website.

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Twigs is careful to convey that AVANTgarden isn’t meant to be a conclusive or definitive destination for the conversation of black hair, but instead a learning experience. “I’m saying embrace your heritage, embrace your hair texture, embrace protective styles.” She purposely centered the first issue on braids, partly because of their complex place in black history and as a conversation-starter. “I am a businesswoman and I can wear a suit and a braid with beads. It was normality and it felt very natural to do it as the first issue of AVANTgarden,” she said matter-of-factly. But more poignantly and perhaps personally, Twigs points out, “Through braids, some people found their liberty.”

I’m here for all of this. Check out AVANTgarden above.

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