Fatima Al Qadiri on Her Pitchfork Packing List—and Why Short Hair Is an Act of Rebellion

It’s just days before Fatima Al Qadiri will fly from Berlin to Chicago for the Pitchfork Music Festival, and her excitement over the lineup of surprise guest stars that will join her and the rest of Future Brown on stage is palpable. “Meeting them in person makes the hard work worth it,” she says. What she is not concerned about is packing. The musician, DJ, and visual artist’s summer touring schedule and upcoming exhibitions (Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne will host a show of her art collective GCC’s work in October), has given her plenty of experience in how to curate a suitcase. Alongside the easy separates from her favorite Japanese designers will be a traveler’s arsenal of skin care and not an ounce of makeup. “I used to wear lipstick, but when I get nervous, I chew my lips—so wearing it onstage, I just ate the lipstick.” Instead, she lets her music and her hair do the talking.

Al Qadiri’s wavy eye-grazing crop, with its tomboyish allure, has seen more than its share of admirers in New York City. But in her home country of Kuwait, it’s viewed as an act of rebellion. “There was a quantum leap between my grandmother’s generation and mine,” says Al Qadiri, who, growing up, felt that certain cultural expressions of femininity, such as the long hair that was traditionally encouraged among Kuwaiti women (“it’s the status quo”) were no longer necessary. “I don’t ever want to put down women for looking how they want to look. [But] I find it just as oppressive to be in a room of women that all have long hair as it is to be the only woman in a room full of men. There’s a very ‘separate lives’ element about it.”

In the same way her early interest in avant-garde labels like Yohji Yamamoto and Margiela provided her with an opportunity to express herself in the face of confining societal notions, Al Quadiri began to explore her identity through her hair and makeup as a teenager. By 1999, she had relocated to the United States to attend Penn State University sporting “a millimeter” of fiery orange hair, a Marilyn Monroe piercing, and blue contacts. “I looked like I was from another planet.” It was the age of the club kid, and inside their Peace Love Unity Respect culture, Al Qadiri found freedom. “[Their look] wasn’t super feminine—it was very androgynous. Men and women wore JNCO jeans. I found the relationships between the sexes extremely liberating.”

Eventually, the contact lenses were removed and the orange hair dye gave way to her natural obsidian, but Al Qadiri has kept her hair short ever since. Today’s incarnation is a nod to the classic French carré—a style that celebrated women’s liberation in the twenties, though Al Qadiri’s just-above-the-ear homage is purely aesthetic. “I always found that fade in the back so attractive as a kid.” First snipped in 2007 by the Lower East Side–based stylist Emiko Watanabe, the musician’s crop and its required upkeep (regular cuts every three weeks) has met its challenges on the road. Constant touring requires sourcing a trustworthy stylist in each new city, and during extended trips to Kuwait, the act of asking for a trim has not proved so simple. She has, on occasion, been criticized on the street for her short length; and, she adds with a laugh, “I get called sir a lot.”

Monthly haircuts aside, her closely shorn waves require minimal effort. “It’s just my hair being itself. I wash it, put wax in it and I’m done.” The time she does spend on getting ready is dedicated almost exclusively to skin care. “[Because I don’t wear makeup,] I want to look as flawless as I can naturally.” For this, she reaches for Peter Thomas Roth’s Rose Stem Cell Bio-Repair cream during the day, and Sarah Chapman’s Skinesis Overnight Facial Oil in the evening. “It smells like every flower on the planet is inside of it, and it makes your skin really soft—you can see the difference. I hate myself [in the morning] if I don’t put it on at night.” For frequent flights, she always carries on a face mist—Caudalie’s Beauty Elixir and May Lindstrom’s The Jasmine Garden are recent favorites—and Clarins Lotus Face Treatment Oil.

If her involved skin care routine seems at odds with her stance on hair and resistance to elaborate getting-ready rituals, which she refers to as a “colossal waste of time,” Al Qadiri welcomes the contradiction. “There’s always been a battle in me. I’m constantly trying to embrace and reject femininity.” Spoken like an artist who finds beauty in the contrasts.

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