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Andrzej Liguz for The New York Times
Hadiiya Barbel.
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These were no ordinary wigs, however. These were custom creations by Hadiiya Barbel,
a stylist and wig maker to the stars. And as Ms. Barbel zipped about
the salon in a black jumpsuit and leopard flats, she made it abundantly
clear that she’d prefer her customers not use the W-word.
“I don’t call them wigs, I call them crowns,” she declared with a
flourish. “A wig is something you take out of a bag and put on your
head. It’s standard. It has no personality. It’s ready-to-wear. A crown
is couture.”
In her two-decade career, Ms. Barbel has established herself as a master
wig, ahem, crown designer. She has worked with supermodels like Iman,
actresses like Angela Bassett
and a host of music artists like Ashanti and Mya. Kim Zolciak, the
resident Barbie of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” is a huge fan. And
Star Jones credits Ms. Barbel for her looks on NBC’s “Celebrity
Apprentice” last season.
“People are still talking about the fierce side bun she created,” Ms.
Jones said. “I defy you to see where the wig begins and my real hair
blends in.”
Ms. Barbel’s biggest calling card to date, however, has been the talk
show host Wendy Williams, a walking exclamation point and devout wig
fanatic — or “wiggie” as she proudly calls herself. Landing the gig as
Ms. Williams’s hairstylist sent Ms. Barbel’s career into overdrive and
won her a daytime Emmy for hairstyling in 2010.
“Wendy talked about me on TV all the time,” she said. “People were asking all about her hair.”
Ms. Barbel and Ms. Williams have since parted ways (Ms. Williams
declined an interview request). But other high-profile clients remain
loyal, and continue to pay anywhere from $400 to several thousand
dollars for her crowns.
While most of her clients are motivated by vanity, some deal with deeper
issues. There are religious reasons (she counts many Orthodox Jews as
clients), while others cite health (including chemotherapy patients and
alopecia sufferers). Still others are looking for the cure for a broken
heart.
“Girls come in all the time for a breakover,” Ms. Barbel said. “That’s the makeover you get after a breakup.”
For one blond woman at the sample sale last winter, her thin hair was so
humiliating she seldom left the house without a hat.
“I would talk to someone and see their eyes going to the top of my head
and just feel so awkward and insecure,” said the woman, who requested
anonymity because she did not want people to know she wears a wig. She
credited Ms. Barbel’s wigs with giving her confidence. “Hadiiya brought
me back to life,” she said.
Because she often sees women at their most vulnerable, Ms. Barbel, a
bubbly, irrepressible character who is given to new-age spiritual speak,
will not work if she’s not feeling “centered,” she said.
“The head is a sacred place, and the hands that touch your hair have to
have positive energy,” she said. “If I’m not feeling well, I’ll call out
sick. I don’t want negative energy transferred to my clients.”
While weaves and hair extensions have become fashion staples, there is
still some stigma attached to wigs, Ms. Barbel acknowledged.
“People think about a fishhook snatching somebody’s hair or someone
driving in a convertible and their hair flying off,” she said, laughing.
“But the Supremes wore wigs, Cher wore wigs, the Egyptians wore wigs in ceremonial practices and it wasn’t a joke at all.”
Born and raised in the Fordham section of the Bronx, Ms. Barbel said she
was a “tall and awkward child.” Her eyesight was poor — she’s legally
blind in her right eye — and she wore embarrassingly thick glasses.
Neighborhood children called her “bifocals” and would regularly steal
her spectacles for sport.
“I still feel the pain of that,” she said quietly. “It was very
traumatizing. I guess that’s part of the reason I’m drawn to making
people look good, because I had such low self-esteem growing up.”
She traded the glasses for contacts when she was a student at the High
School of Fashion Industries in Chelsea, and blossomed. Dressing in
quirky, look-at-me clothing — “the more colorful the better” — and an
ever-changing array of hairstyles won her a “fan club,” Ms. Barbel said.
She was 17 when she landed her first job at a salon in Harlem. She lasted there a week.
“The owner was cheating on his wife,” she said, “and when she asked me what was going on, I told her the truth.”
Longer stints followed at salons in SoHo, the West Village and Brooklyn.
Ms. Barbel’s weaves were particularly popular and landed her editorial
work for magazines like Essence.
She transitioned to custom wigs when one of her clients, an aspiring
actress, had to constantly change her look for auditions. Her business
took off after that.
Ms. Barbel’s newest celebrity client is the rapper-actress Eve, who came
to her looking for “more of a bohemian hipster look, which is right up
my alley because that’s my vibe,” she said. She is also in talks to
start a hair-extension line with Ms. Zolciak, writing a book about the
evolution of the wig and working on a lower-priced faux hair line. Her
dream is to take her crowns to the masses.
“Like Versace for H & M,” she said. “I want to do that for the crown.”
Hair News Network
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