Confidence is Beauty - The Melissa Update

Rock It, Melissa!

Her wide smile is as gorgeous as her new “do.”  Melissa’s a natural beauty at ease with herself.  She has lots of good hair days, and her crowning glory is not tied to a Eurocentric standard.  She has spark, spunk, and exudes confidence. 

Treasures From the Trunk - Melissa D’Agostino

On a recent Saturday I walked into a comfy light-filled apartment on Rittenhouse Square filled with fashion treasures.  Melissa D’Agostino Fashion Textile Design was in the house with a closet full of riches.  Woo-hoo!  The weekend treasure hunt was on!

Melissa D’Agostino is a young Philadelphia designer who crafts one-of-kind pieces using Shibori hand-dyeing techniques and locally sourced materials.  Her dresses make any woman look heartbreakingly, traffic-stoppingly gorgeous. She also features stunning head scarves, wraps that moonlight as curve-hugging skirts, and tunics that don’t make the wearer look as if she’s wearing a slipcover.  The dyes are universally flattering colors from nature.  The collection, as her calling card says, is “a seasonless collection hand dyed and sewn in Philadelphia to celebrate the spirit of our client.”

Melissa’s background is in sculpture; she earned a BA in Sculptural Fine Arts from the Moore College of Art and Design.  She learned to weld before she learned to sew.  She’s warm and talkative, and her enthusiasm for her designs and her customers is infectious.  Check out these pics from the event, check out her website at melissadagostino.com, then try to convince me that you don‘t want one of her pieces! 

Melissa at the Trunk Show

Unknown Guest

Happy Mother's Day!

Betty in the early 1950s

Scratch a little below my surface and you'll find my unforgettable mother, Betty.  She's forever in my heart although she left me 16 years ago.  Happy Mother's Day to my readers and the fabulous mothers in their lives!

A Natural Woman

Melissa at the gym

This post is the first in a series on love affairs between Black women and their natural hair.  Meet Melissa, one of my workout buddies.

Melissa first went natural right after graduating from college in 1986.  “People thought I was disappointed about life after college, but I just didn’t do hair.”  Her sorority sisters kept her hair looking sharp while she was an undergrad. One made her hair swing with chemical relaxers, another was a wizard with scissors, a blow dryer and curling irons. 

When Melissa returned to her southern home town after college her mother said, “She done went to the white people’s school and lost her mind.”  Mom added, “We don’t want to look at your nappy head, you know white people don’t want to look at it either!”  Eventually she caved in to family pressure and straightened her hair.  Melissa then landed a job at a hotel and returned to chemical relaxers.  I’d bet that her co-workers and customers relaxed because she didn’t look like a revolutionary waiting to be televised.

She’s locking her hair now, and describes it is an individual journey with heaps of self-love. It’s a warm relationship between a woman, her hair, and her self-image.  As Melissa will tell you, “You can’t get away from yourself.” 

She admires Nina Simone and Maya Angelou with their striking African features and stunning natural style.  She talks about seeing black as a color of power, and how we need to reorient ourselves to that idea.  (Just think about judges wearing black robes.)  Black is also the color of elegance. (Just think of the LBD.)

Melissa wraps up our conversation about hair by saying, “Originally I cut it because I didn’t want to do anything [to it] but now thirty years later I have to decide what to do with it!”  Sounds like a fabulous challenge!

Skipping the salon also has a nice wallet fattening quality. She laughs and says, “I keep that $110 in my pocket.”