For Black gamers, customising avatars in video games is an, uh… interesting process. There are often limited styles or simply none at all to create accurate Black characters. In the hairstyle department, you're usually stuck with exclusively straight and wavy hair, or if you're lucky, one or two Afro-textured styles that, to put it nicely, are pretty basic.
“It's f*cking gross.”
From time to time, we get a small win when video game companies add more Black hairstyles, like in 2020 when Animal Crossing released the Top 6 Stylish Hairstyles, comprised entirely of Afro-textured looks. Now The Sims 4 players can rejoice because the newest Growing Together Expansion Pack includes five new Black hairstyles created by Lacy Redway.
As a hairstylist, Redway's hands have graced the likes of Tessa Thompson, Zazie Beets, Sadie Sink, and many more. However, working on a human or mannequin head is completely different than conceptualising a hairstyle for a video game character, providing new territory that required Redway to remain "authentic" to real-life Black hairstyling. "I was really specific about parting and baby hairs and how things lay, or how the hair came out of the scalp," she says. And yet this challenge, she says, was her favourite part of the process.
Immediately when I watched The Sims 4's gameplay trailer, a smile formed on my face when I saw the Michaelsons, a Black family who wore the new hairstyles. The four family members are premade characters that exist in the game. Celeste, a mother of two, had the braids styled into a top knot with baby hairs that were laid better than mine even on a good day. Her husband, Christopher, had the short coily haircut.
Atlas, the son of Celeste and Christopher, had the "men's box braids" style, which features a few shoulder-grazing plaits — it's one of Redway's favourite styles because it reminds her of her own son. (The baby Orion Michaelson was not wearing one of the new styles.) There is also a glimpse of a character, who is presumably Celeste's mother, with shoulder-length natural curls and a colourful headband. The last of the five new styles, two puffs with a cornrow with beads on either side, is not featured in the trailer, but you can see it below.
It took a year to develop these hairstyles with the collaboration starting in February 2022. During that time, Redway was continuously providing feedback and photo references with EA, the company that produces The Sims franchise. "I feel bad because sometimes I would send back so many rounds of feedback on specific styles or be very specific about hair lines and how the hair grew out of the head, or how the braid came out of the scalp," she says.
Redway swears that the hardest part was choosing which five styles would make the cut. "I wish I could've brought 15 different styles to make everyone feel seen. But I think this is a beautiful place that we landed."
“I don't see hate. I only focus on positivity.”
Though she isn't much of a gamer, this collaboration opened Redway's eyes to another part of her career she never really thought about. "I think this really introduced me to a love that I didn't really know I had and a passion for consulting more in this world." So it doesn't look like this will be the last time Redway will create Black hairstyles for a video game, and we're certainly grateful.
This story originally appeared on Allure.
