The energy was exhilarating when I entered the backstage area of Diotima’s fall 2025 presentation about two hours before the start time. Everyone was preparing for designer Rachel Scott’s first presentation since winning the CFDA’s American Womenswear Designer of the Year award: Kendrick Lamar’s “Squabble Up” blasted loudly on the heels of his Super Bowl performance; an array of sleek, jet black wigs with falling roller sets were lined up on a wall; and next to the wigs was a book by photographer and artist Dawoud Bey featuring photographs of Black women wearing similar styles. As I flipped through the book, I saw images reflective of Black women’s relationship with hair, like moments of applying rollers at the kitchen table. Directly above the wigs and the book was a sign that read “Diotima Matriarch,” the show’s theme, in bold letters.
For the past four days, hairstylist Joey George and the Oribe team had been prepping these wigs to mimic a style seen in these late-’80s and early-’90s photographs by Bey. It was also a style personal to Scott, a Jamaican designer who has portraits of her grandmother in hairstyles with her roller sets slightly loose and dropping throughout the day. While the wig prep started only days before, the ideation of the style began in December.
Returning to Fashion Week after Scott’s big CFDA win, she and George were “ready to press the gas,” knowing how many eyes would be on the presentation this season. “We looked through the work and saw images of matriarchs doing hair at the kitchen table,” George said. “It’s just this place of meeting, so when we were talking about matriarchs, I was thinking about how that is such a significant part of hair.”
When George imagines a matriarch, he thinks of “a selfless woman who doesn’t have time for herself because she’s so busy with other people,” he said. George pictured this woman grabbing her coat and running out the door as her curls fell. That was the image he wanted to capture.
I watched hairstylists wrap-set the models’ hair, blow-drying it using T3 and Dyson dryers (our personal favorites) before placing the wigs on top of their heads. During the presentation, the curls stayed sculpted thanks to Oribe’s Superfine hairspray, the flexible hold spray that not only kept the wigs shiny but also secured the unraveling roller sets in place. The models’ beauty didn’t stop at the undone rollers. They wore deep cherry and raspberry shades of Addiction Tokyo blush, which makeup artist and global creative director of the brand Kanako Takase dubs “rebellion blush that reflects beauty and darkness.”
Not only did the collection of tailored suits, accompanied by signature Diotima crochet pieces and embellished dresses, show that, but the beauty of her flaws and the boldness of her beauty showed us precisely the women Diotima wanted to celebrate. Scott so effortlessly connected her experiences as a Black woman to her creative designs.
