A few days ago, Coco Gauff took to Instagram to share some images taken during a recent photoshoot with Miu Miu, the luxury fashion brand she's been an ambassador for since last year. The campaign photos show the 22-year-old tennis star posing on a sunny court wearing a red collared shirt, cobalt blue mini skirt, white ankle socks, and black loafers. Most of the comments underneath her Instagram post were celebratory and uplifting, but once the photos were reshared on X (formerly known as Twitter)—the dumpster fire of a platform that I've reluctantly gotten back into the habit of perusing again recently—they were unsurprisingly met with a wave of criticism over her kinky hair and the way it was styled. The style in question? A bun. (Gasp, I know.)
For whatever reason, Gauff's choice to wear her natural hair in this style in her ad campaign led a handful of commenters to complain about her hair not looking "polished" enough, even drawing disrespectful comparisons to Ruby Bridges (who's still alive, by the way) and other civil rights activists as a way to insult her appearance, implying that wearing natural texture is childish or out of style. Is it disappointing to see the hair texture that Coco and I—and many, many others—share being discussed this way? Absolutely. But I'm also not surprised.
