Malia Obama isn’t afraid of experimenting with color—new era, new filmmaking venture, new look. Now, Malia Ann Obama is debuting her brightest red hair yet.
The daughter of Barack and Michelle Obama stepped out following a yoga class in Los Angeles, giving us a look at her more intense red hair: It’s a rusty hue, set in braids which the young filmmaker pulled back into a low, gathered up ponytail—a color not too far off her tangerine yoga mat.
Malia Obama’s sense of style percolates among Gen Z’s most recognizable sartorial pillars: looser silhouettes, vintage, power clashing. It’s laidback and comfortable, with rotational key pieces like plaid separates and thrifted boots. Her beauty aesthetic follows the throughline: Loose curls with a smattering of little plaits, box braids, and various shades of red. For her directorial debut The Heart and its screening at the Deauville American Film Festival, Obama wore a Vivienne Westwood dress with undulating braids in brick tones. And while she once toyed with a blonde dip-dye, she’s oscillated in recent years between hues of cherry, warmer auburn, and now, a most intense and rusty red, its dimension achieved through braiding techniques.
Obama is among a clutch of celebrities reaching for the red: From Jenna Ortega’s more gothic dye job to Dua Lipa’s turn with cherry cola tresses, see below for some of the best of red.
Keke Palmer
The bombshell curls and brilliant shade of red perfectly suit Keke Palmer’s sparkling energy. The actor’s red hair era has continued with a razored, chin-grazing bob and big, bold ’90s blowouts.
Tessa Thompson
The actor debuted a crisp, cinnamon-y red shade at the Venice Film festival, with darker roots to add dimension and body. Across the event, she wore it in coiffed, cute curls and slicked down in a gothic mermaid style.
Megan Thee Stallion
Megan Thee Stallion’s Met Gala look was topped off with a show-stopping sculptural hairdo, amplified by her fiery, streaked shades of red.
Emma Roberts
“Sunrise red” is what hairstylists Nikki Lee and Riawna Capri called Emma Roberts’s evolution from her longheld blonde. She’s managed to keep up the uber-shiny, multi-dimensional shade.
Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa kickstarted the cherry cola hair trend, that leans more into a burgundy hue. It’s sexy, sweet, and sophisticated.
Kendall Jenner
Kendall first debuted a copper shade during Milan Fashion Week for her turn on the Prada catwalk, and kept up the hue—with an increase in length, too—for more red carpet appearances.
Sophie Turner
I think we’ve all been fooled to believe Sophie Turner is a natural ginger, a color that became her signature from the first moment we first saw her in Game of Thrones. But lo, she’s a blonde! Over the years, she’s experimented with darker and metallic reds, and this shiny auburn hue.
Sydney Sweeney
We know Sydney Sweeney best as a bombshell blondy, but for the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards, she switched it up with a tousled strawberry blonde.
Jenna Ortega
Scream and wacky weirdo film queen Jenna Ortega debuted a shade her hairstylist called “unicorn blood” during her Death of a Unicorn press tour. It’s deep and vampy, catching the light to make it a more sultry shade of red to experiment with.
