“It was always a gift—I knew how to braid when I was a seven-year-old,” Harlem-born hair artist Shamicka Williams tells Vogue. “It turned into a wonderful business that has taken me all around the world.” She’s in her hotel room in Paris between back-to-back shows, from the freestyle braids at Off-White she created with hair artist Jawara to the straightforward three-strand anime look for Loewe under the direction of Guido Palau. The rotating team that Williams has come to collaborate with backstage includes female braiders scouted for their skills, like Tashana Miles, Kady Balde, Muriel Cole, Drea, and Aminata Kamara. The fall 2024 season started early for them at Dior Haute Couture at the end of January in Paris, where they gathered backstage to help Palau create fully braided iterations of the show’s low, elongated buns for models with textured hair.
It was Jawara who originally brought Williams and Miles together half a decade ago (and Williams started working with Jawara in a Park Avenue salon years before that). Soon Palau began calling on them for houses like Dior, Versace, and Dolce Gabbana. This took them beyond the familiar fashion-month circuit of New York, London, Milan, and Paris to destinations like Egypt, Rome, Nice, Seville, and Mexico City to help with cruise collections often shown in beachy, gorgeous escapes. Wherever their hands take them, “it’s great working with Guido,” says Miles, who also works with celebs like ASAP Rocky. “It’s a beautiful collaboration.”
“The more and more braiding that was needed backstage meant I had to build a new division of my team,” says Palau enthusiastically, noting that they travel with him around the globe, pushing each other to make new looks and learn the styles that work. “Now when we are designing the hair, I will think about the braided look in the show and then I’ll work with the girls on how we can re-create a similar vibe with that kind of technique,” he says. “They’re a really important part of the show—they know the hair better.” He includes Williams and Miles in early brainstorming stages to help translate straight-hair styles into braids, all while respecting texture. “Now he gives us ideas and then we explore,” says Miles, referencing Dior’s pre-fall 2023 collection of ’40s-inspired hair. “They were doing the finger waves, and so we had to come up with waves inside the braid to create that look.” She likes that it’s leveling up the lens on braids. “A lot of people weren’t really paying attention to braids like that before,” she says. “Then we bring this new concept and new idea of how it could be worn—chic and beautiful.”
Their skills are in high demand now that the fashion industry is paying attention to models’ natural hair textures—and how to best care for them. “It creates a trust and a bond of knowing that someone actually cares for their hair, as well, not just sending it down the runway,” Williams says. “We’re not going to fry it. We’re going to keep this hair safe, but get the look.” That day they had to cut a Tom Ford model’s hair because at another show “someone just flatironed it way too long to create the look,” she says, noting the backstage pace can prioritize results over long-term health. “We’re under pressure, so we can use a nice heat-protecting or conditioning spray,” she says. She buys Morfose products in bulk from French beauty stockists so her New York clients can feel as important as those on the catwalks—though she says her most important product for hair is love.
As soon as they return to New York after shows, their clients are quick to request the new braids. “Once they’re on the runway, then we can go put it out on the streets—just like the clothes,” Williams says. Miles agrees: “The moment they see it on the runway, they’re like, That’s so cool.” Even children who get braids at Williams’s Harlem salon are aware of her fashion circuit now. “They can’t sleep the night before they come in because they can’t wait to get to school so everybody can see their hair. They’ll say, ‘Your hands were in Naomi Campbell’s hair, and now they’re touching mine?’” Williams says. “It makes me feel really great to have that moment—a little girl feeling so good that she’s like, ‘My hairstylist? She’s in Paris right now.’”
