Beyond the Chair: a reflection

At Braiding Nairobi, we've always viewed Black hair as art - but we didn't know the best way to display it as such.

Over the past year of operation, we've completed dozens of styles. Box braids, twists, dreadlock reties. We've helped our customers express themselves. But to celebrate one year, we decided to help our braiders express themselves.

If our braiders had free reign, 15,000 KES, and a challenge to create runway ready hair, what could they do?

On July 19th, Braiding Nairobi turned one. To celebrate, we didn’t just throw a party—we built an experience. Beyond the Chair was Nairobi’s first-ever braid-a-thon, runway show, and gala dedicated entirely to the women who braid, design, and create in this city every day.

It wasn’t just about styles. It was about stories.

At 2 PM, braiders across Nairobi took the stage—not as assistants in the background, but as the main event. Armed with combs, edge control, and bundles of extensions, they had three hours to turn everyday hair into runway-ready looks. Around them, Nairobi’s best up-and-coming fashion designers stitched last-minute hems and fussed over details, pairing garments with hairstyles like partners in a two-part poem.

By 8 PM, the lights dimmed, and the runway came alive.

Models walked not just in clothes—but in full looks sculpted from Nairobi’s creative scene: dramatic, towering ponytails, intricately beaded braids, locs wrapped in fabric, textures pushed to the edge of possibility. The crowd—stylists, founders, artists, aunties, aunties-who-are-also-founders—cheered with every reveal.

And when the runway ended, the party didn’t.

Attendees flooded the gala afterparty, dancing among installation art, pop-up shops, and curated sounds. It felt like a homecoming. It felt like the kind of celebration that recognizes how much unseen work lives behind every braid—and how much joy can exist when that work is centered.

For a long time, the women behind the chair have been overlooked. They’ve braided on balconies and in backrooms, commuted hours across the city, worked long days with no lunch break, no pension, no guarantee. But they’ve also built empires. They’ve kept culture alive. And they’ve made artistry feel tangible.

Beyond the Chair was a tribute to them. A reminder that hair is never just about hair—it’s about expression, identity, income, and pride.

We’re just getting started.

If you missed this year, don’t worry. We’re already dreaming up what’s next.