Style capital, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
The city of carnival, of the Black Rio dance parties of the 1970s, and of a natural-hair movement in its north zone.
Rio de Janeiro has long set the look of Brazil, from the samba schools of carnival to the beaches of Ipanema. In the 1970s the Black Rio movement, soul and funk dance parties in the city's north zone, brought the black power hairstyle, as Brazilians called the afro, into the open. More recently, natural curly and coily hair, called cabelo crespo, has become a matter of pride for many Brazilian women.
Black Rio
The Black Rio movement grew in the 1970s around dance parties in the suburbs of the north zone, where DJs played American soul and funk and thousands of young Black Cariocas came dressed in platform shoes and large afros. The movement worried the military government of the time, which watched it as a possible political threat. It is remembered as a key moment for Black identity in Brazil and for natural hair.
Crespo and cacheado
Brazilians speak of cabelo cacheado, curly hair, and cabelo crespo, coily hair, and from the 2010s many women stopped straightening with chemical treatments, a change often called the transição capilar. Salons specialising in curly hair opened, and marches celebrating natural hair have been held in Brazilian cities. Box braids, called tranças, are widely worn, and carnival brings elaborate headdresses that rest on carefully set hair.
