CRWN is a hair magazine challenging the myth of the monolithic black woman. And, in the process, changing what a hair magazine can be. When was the last time a subscription included afros, melanin, and wine at NYC women’s space The Wing, or a lesson in the connection between Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” and the oil paintings of fine artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye? One thing you won’t get from CRWN is photos of traditional celebrities. “We want to do something different, where the everyday woman is getting the Oprah or the Beyoncé treatment,” co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Day tells i-D. That’s not to say there’s no crossover — the CRWN fam includes model and activist Nikia Phoenix, who runs the platform Black Girl Beautiful.
Day launched CRWN as a zine — “kind of like our demo tape”— at Afropunk in 2015. She’s a big believer in the power of creative youth to shift conversations and move diversity in the right direction. “Especially with everything that’s going on politically, when you feel like so many people are speaking hate and intolerance, there is a generation which is just like, ‘Nah,'” she says. “We’re not going to be defined by rules that are placed on us.” We asked Day about using hair to talk about women’s history, hiring young photographers, and hair fear vs. national security.

Tell me about launching at Afropunk. What sort of responses did you get?
[Before tackling our first full issue], we went out with our little CRWN zine — our MVP — and passed it out at Afropunk. It started conversations and connected us with other sisters, and that was the moment when we were like, “Okay, I think we have something.” That was really day one for CRWN as a business — being at Afropunk and talking to people. We were speaking to people and seeing their eyes light up, saying, “Oh my gosh, my sister needs to see this” or telling us their personal hair stories and things that are very important to them. Without those initial conversations, we wouldn’t have had the validation or the market to really make it a viable business.
Why is hair a good starting point for talking about the lives and history of black women?
There are a lot of things to unpack about our history and where we come from — the systematic things that have been put in place to pit us against each other. We need a safe place to talk about these things, and everyone has a relationship to hair — even if you don’t have hair, you’re defined by that, in a way. As a black woman, hair is so often politicized. There are young girls down in South Africa who were suspended for wearing afros to school, and it caused this huge uproar. Even in the U.S. employers will not hire women because they have dreadlocks. It’s a reflection of society and how black people are portrayed and represented. A lot of time there’s a lot of fear placed around being black, or when you are black you have to be this certain type of black. We don’t see often see ourselves, in print or on screen, the way that we woke up. We wanted to create a place where you don’t have to be a celebrity, you don’t have to be super poppin’ — you can just be you.

How do you find the women you feature in the magazine? Are they mostly non-models?
Nikia Phoenix is a model, but now she has a platform called Black Girl Beautiful. Our connection was organic. She was in our first zine so we connected with her way back when. We wouldn’t say that we would never put a model in CRWN, but we’re not trading on celebrity. We want to do something different, where the everyday woman is getting the Oprah or the Beyoncé treatment.
Why it important to incorporate art, fashion, and lifestyle into this conversation?
There’s such a movement happening right now in terms of black women being the largest growing segment of entrepreneurs in the country, we’re traveling more than ever. When you do go through the process of embracing your natural texture, a lot of the time there are so many aspects of your life that are unexpectedly affected. I’ve seen that through friends, and through my mother when she was diagnosed with cancer. It’s been a very big health change for her. She changed her diet, she changed her lifestyle, she started running. Women often experience positive spiritual, emotional, and even physical changes as a result of going on this journey. There is a sisterhood in understanding what that’s like and having a safe space to talk about it. CRWN has a strong lifestyle and youth element, but also a support system and a community.
How would you describe your own relationship with your hair?
I never thought I would make a hair magazine. It was a topic I shied away from because my hair was always different. I’m mixed (with black and white) so my hair wasn’t like my mom’s hair, but we struggled together. I remember swimming one day at my white aunt’s house, and my hair came out in this huge matted knot. It took hours and hours and so much conditioner to untangle. I didn’t understand that you couldn’t just swim with your hair in a ponytail. Hair was a thing just because there weren’t hair products for me. In high school, I remember seeing mixed chicks, but black hair products didn’t have wide distribution yet and our hair wasn’t a mainstream conversation. You get used to not seeing yourself represented. When I did start seeing more black women represented, I would see curls, but not hair like my mother’s. These women are still often ignored in the mainstream media.

You were talking about how U.S. employers won’t hire women because they have dreadlocks. Do you have any personal experience with this kind of discrimination?
I have had several friends who have said they didn’t get a job interview because of their hair, or their boss said something about their hair, like, “Oh you didn’t do your hair today.” The more we talk about these things, the more we realize how similar we really are. We talked to a young woman who was in the military, and she started walking around with a ruler because natural hair had to be a certain length. This woman is serving our country, and she has to walk around with a ruler because of her hair. Where is our focus being placed? Why is our hair such a threat? Especially when national security is at stake.
Do you believe that mainstream beauty standards are changing in positive ways?
There is an increasing emphasis being put on natural beauty and inclusive beauty. Even with freckles — freckles are the thing now, but when I was growing up, if you talked to people like Nikia Phoenix, they would say they got teased like crazy. This younger generation is so open. You see more people who look different or are disabled who are making waves in fashion. Especially with everything that’s going on politically, when you feel like so many people are speaking hate and intolerance, there is a generation which is just like, “Nah.” We’re not going to be defined by rules that are placed on us. There are young girls who are barely out of high school and have large followings just for being themselves. Women are able, just because we have cellphones in our hands at all times, to break these stereotypes that are pushed on us and have a large collective influence on larger culture through the power of social media. The power of beauty standards is being decentralized and I think that’s for the better.

CRWN really seems to understand the importance of youth having a voice. You also encourage young creatives to submit their creative or writing portfolios.
Each time we put out a new issue we do a call for submissions. We want to make CRWN open to creative talent that may be outside the in-crowd of people who moved to New York and interned and went through this process. We wanted to make that opportunity available to the most talented people on paper, who might not physically be in New York City but have something important to say. One of the things we set out to do was celebrate and edify black women, and showcase the diversity of black women, so in order to do that, we didn’t want to recreate the same system that we already see — that has led young women to feel that they don’t have a place to share their voices in an authentic way. As we grow, we want to be a platform where young people can grow with us.
What does your business partner Nkrumah Farrar, who is male, bring to the table?
His perspective is so necessary. I think there’s something to be said for the male/female dynamic just because of the different ways you have been conditioned. It’s kind of like when you’re having guy issues or whatever, your girlfriend is going to tell you something very different than your guy friend. And a lot of the time, the guy might be a little more accurate, if you’re being honest. Nkrumah also sees the true beauty of a woman when she might be having one of those “Oh, I look terrible” days. It’s a constant reminder that men don’t necessarily want women to look perfect. I’ve learned, after dieting in my teens and then straightening my hair for 10 years, there are all these things you do to manipulate what is you. He also has a tremendous respect for women and our power. He taught me, in a lot of ways, that in order to heal and empower our communities, it starts with women. When we’re right, they’ll be right. That doesn’t take the onus off men to get their shit together!
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley