Hair Apparent is an inspirational ‘hairmoire’ embracing the powerful legacy of Afro hair across seventy years of trends in fashion and culture. It is based on Tina Shingler’s experience of growing up as a Black child in the white space of 1960s rural North Yorkshire and tracks her personal history across the UK, Italy, the US and India.

Tina grew up as a Black Barnardo’s child in the 1950s and 1960s and at three years old was – in the bureaucratic lingo of the time – ‘boarded out’ to a white foster family. She was one of the lucky ones, bypassing the dead hand of institutional care for the comfort of a regular family, but, because she didn’t know any better, her foster mother used to chop back Tina’s hair as close to her scalp as she could. Adding insult to injury, being shorn like a sheep felt like an extra punishment for having such troublesome hair.

Today, many Black girls are growing up confident in the knowledge that their naturally kinky hair in all its amazing transmutations is truly powerful. For them, Hair Apparent will be a confirmation and celebration of what they already know: that out of their scalps springs something so lively, so complex and so extraordinarily versatile that it’s like having an extra gear, not just to their look but to their whole personality.

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