Solange To Magazine: Don't Touch My Hair

“On the cover of the latest issue of the Evening Standard Magazine, the singer is seen wearing a white ruffled dress, bold pearl earrings and a sleek, braided hairstyle.

However, in the same image posted to her personal Instagram page on Thursday (seen above), Solange is also shown donning a beautiful braided crown that didn’t make an appearance on the magazine cover. She captioned her photo “dtmh,” an abbreviation for “Don’t Touch My Hair,” the name of a song from her acclaimed latest album. She also tagged the Evening Standard Magazine’s Instagram handle.

This prompted several people to leave comments below the magazine’s own post, asking why editors changed her hair.

The story itself ― posted online Thursday with the headline “Solange: ‘I Miss Out On Chances By Wanting Control Over My Body’” ― focuses heavily on the singer’s autonomy and the importance she places on her imagery.”

Hosts: Grace Baldridge, Mark Thompson, Simone Boyce

Cast: Grace Baldridge, Mark Thompson, Simone Boyce

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Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations.(American Heritage Dictionary)

[BeardiusMaximus]

I was stunned when she said the UK was maybe 'culturally not quite there yet'. Allow me to give you a quite example of who's there yet:
In the US, White people are referred to as "American". Black people are referred to as "African American".
In the UK, We call White people "British". You know what we call Black people? "British". In fact, if you're British, you're "British". Your skin colour doesn't even come in to it.
So please, come back to me when you're inclusive enough to call every American, "American"...regardless of what they look like

[Buzz]

What is a nothing story like this doing on this channel? I thought celebrities getting upset about their photo shoot was more TMZ’s level of reporting.

[sweetchicken]

My friend from Thailand she told me in her culture is rude to touch someone hair..

[mojosbigsticks]

It didn't fit on the cover.  The full picture wasn't punchy enough.  Big whoop.

[mrjonhou]

So a magazine photoshopped their cover page? No way.

[mech]

The circle is representative of the Orion constellation?
I miss the days when artist let the Art do the talking.

[moriahjohnthejohnsons]

The UK has had black ppl as residents and citizens for years! They embrace them too! This magazine chose to disregard her wishes

[LoveLiyah]

People say this story doesn't matter. But it does. When you can get excluded for having dreads or pushed away from corporate jobs for having natural Afro hair. Hair is important to black people. It's a reflection of a much wider issue of entitlement, racism and discrimination.

[TheCyberwoman]

Here's the thing about this, while you can never divorce photo shopping African American hair from the complicated historical aspect, I think there is also women in general issue happening. Would they do this to Marilyn Manson, if he showed up with elaborate hair or a head piece. I don't think they would. They would recognize him as a performer with a vision and an image. I think it's so engrained in them to make women fit a certain definition of perfect on magazine covers that they changed it without a second thought.

[ReaperTheRager]

I have done digital editing and I can tell you this was for practical reasons. If they would have left the hair then her entire figure would have been pushed down effectively cropping out everything below her shoulders and it would have created too much "dead space" in the cover itself.

[hu-hu.]

I fuckin LOVE Solange! Her videos are cinematic art. I can watch Cranes in The Sky for a hour pausing and taking in each frame.

[vercoda]

Designers constantly make such snap decisions - I have no idea who the lady in question is, but there’s no possible way that her shot could have been used unedited without her being shrunken to half the vertical size of the cover, which she and her supporters must be aware of. The only alternative would be to crop her into a standard portrait size, which they did, and then let the viewer see the very start of the arc of hair jetting out into the full unseen circle. As a designer and editor who’s worked on a huge number of covers and portrait shots myself, I can totally understand their designer just deciding to neaten the shot, edit it slightly, just as you’d/we’d do on anyone. This does seem to be a non-story, and an issue for the sake of it.

[jaredg]

I just want to point out. When people say "what it means to black woman to touch their hair". I understand they get asked more often to have their hair touched. But people shouldn't be touching any strangers hair, that's weird. Quit being weird.

[thatjackal]

Yeh solange was a very intentional person when she tried to beat the shit out of Jay-z

[gretaj.]

Am i the only one who thinks it was photoshopped off because the hair didnt fit in the cover. Are the pictures inside the magazine showing her whole hair? That is what i would like to know.

[chop]

Another example of how TYT is not a news channel.

[zoliking]

Touching and touching up is not the same thing, wtf. And if you take half a second look at the picture you realize that the point of the edit was not anything deep or meaningful, they took that giant goofy thing out so the composition could work. The only difference between this and the hair not edited out is in this version there isn't a tiny fragment at the top of the frame with 95% cut off by the edge of the picture. So who is at fault for all this? Let's examine the facts:
1, The magazine made a common sense choice for the composition.
2, They are extremely unlikely to have had any kind of ill intentions or hostility.
3, This woman is very self conscious about her looks and the magazine altering it on the picture rightfully pissed her off.
4, The only damage that was done was that her feelings got hurt a little bit.
What kind of conclusion can be drawn from this? The whole thing is not newsworthy, one woman got ticked off for a magazine putting artistic choices ahead of what she considered important in the picture, which was their right, as I'm sure she signed the paperwork to give them the rights to use and alter her likeness. Some feelings were hurt, everybody acted within their rights and without overstepping any kind of moral boundaries, they all moved on, nobody is at fault.
What is the lesson to be learned? PEOPLE'S FEELINGS, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S ABOUT A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL ARE NOT NEWSWORTHY! Here's a simple litmus test, take something ordinary that happened the same day that happens every day and you would not ever consider it as worthy of people's attention. Joe Smith died after slipping on soap and banging his head in the bathroom wall. Jenny Littleman gave birth to a healthy son. The Podunk Brontosaurs won an upset victory against the Tinyville Onehorses. David Tanner was expelled from school for dealing drugs to his classmates. Each of these are more consequential to what happens in this world than "Solange got upset and she may have been right to be upset." Report on the extraordinary please. Wtf, goddamn.

[stecky]

That style may connected to something important for her, but your average person is not gonna see that. To most, it looks like she'd trying to give herself a halo (which is incredibly arrogant to begin with). Also, the magazine is interested in aesthetics for their cover - they want something that'll sell copies - & that hairdo is *ridiculous*

[bearheart]

This is such a non-story. Magazines have been editing peoples pictures (including the appearance of their hair) for decades. If she really wanted that hair style shown i can understand she'd be peeved, but its deserves a tiny corner of a gossip magazine at best.

[melissah]

Sorry, but the layout people obviously had a problem including the braid. To get the braid onto the cover, they would have had to move the picture so much, it would have looked weird, with her face at the middle of the cover. A standing person with their head in the middle of the cover would have looked insane. To have the picture look normal and include the braid, they would have had to make it so small, it would have looked weird. To have the hair in the shot, the picture should have been take with her seated. They should not have done this without sending her a proof, since they changed the picture so much, but the entire thing should have been reshot.