This Model’s Shaved Head and Boundary-Pushing Attitude Are Breaking the Fashion Week Beauty Mold

On the fourth day of New York Fashion Week, a trip backstage at Gypsy Sport’s show feels like a late-Sunday-afternoon palette cleanser. Gender norms don’t exist, height and body type are nonissues, and there’s no sense of uniformity in the beauty looks—festival-ready face paint, mile-long holographic nails, cobalt-threaded braids, platinum pompadour-mohawks, and acid-green eyeshadow among them.

The over-the-top hair and makeup only accentuates each model’s supersize personality. Case in point: With her shaved head and contagious gap-tooth smile, Slick Woods (née Simone Thompson) is a palpable lightning rod of energy amidst the pre-show madness.  The model, Instagram star, and sometimes rapper represents a new kind of downtown multi-hyphenate. She’s also off-duty friends with Gypsy Sport designer Rio Uribe, who took her along as his sidekick-meets-date to the CFDA awards. “These are my homies. I’m chilling right now—I’m not at work,” she admits with a laugh.

It’s been a few months since Woods buzzed off her hair—and since then, she’s become something of a rising fashion obsession. The real transformation though, she says, has been from the inside, out. Yes, the new look came in handy during the summer heat wave, but on a deeper, personal level, it has allowed her to be more grounded and closer with herself. “I wasn’t in touch with anything and I felt really awkward about it,” she says simply.

Her pared-down cut also happens to bring her other best features into sharp focus, from her doe-shaped eyes to her supernatural skin. She says she abstains from daily face washing. “It looks way better when I don’t—natural oil be glowing.” She’s also careful about the products she uses, sticking to the purest, most natural ingredients. “If I can’t pronounce the shit, I’m not putting it on my [face],” she says. “I feel like we invented pimples.”  Instead, when she does break out, she reaches for a blend of coconut oil, baking soda, and tea tree oil that magically “make it right.”

There may also be something in her candid, tell-it-like-it-is attitude that clears pores and karma alike. “I’ll always speak up if I don’t like something. I’m respectful and polite. I’m not going to overstep my boundaries but I’ll always ask. The worst that could happen is [the answer is] no.”  Spoken like a breakout beauty star in the making.

 

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