vogue
Meet the Rising Model Making Statement Braids Her Signature at New York Fashion Week
SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 8:27 AM
by
ZOE RUFFNER
When 21-year-old newcomer Indira Scott was chosen to close Dior's
Fall 2018 Couture spectacle last July, she attributed her sudden success not to her swan-like grace or her chiseled cheekbones, but to the rows of round baubles that accented her waist-length box braids: "I had been wearing Japanese beads as a talisman that said
all good things will come, so when they told me I was closing [the show] I felt like it was [because of] my beads," Scott remembers.
Fast forward to the present day, and the Jamaica, Queens native, who was scouted while working at The Reformation, is now amplifying this season's runways, too, with her signature adorned spirals. “I love the noise it makes when I walk,” says Scott, who has already appeared at
Matthew Adams Dolan,
Dion Lee,
Prabal Gurung, and
Ralph Lauren where her long plaits—now embellished with chunky wooden beads—have been so striking that even New York Fashion Week's most in-demand hairstylists won't change a thing.
"I don't like to stay with the same beads for too long because I get bored," says Scott, whose hair has previously been woven with
cowrie shells,
gold coils, and
metallic thread. Needless to say, she goes to great lengths to find ornaments that speak to her, whether by scrolling through pages upon pages of Etsy or scavenging a top-secret Queens beauty supply shop where she looks "deep, deep, deep" for accents that she'll incorporate into her tails while watching television. Though it's all become second nature to her, "there is a lot that goes into taking care of braids,” she notes, calling out de-frizzing practices like wrapping her hair nightly in a silk scarf and sleeping on satin sheets, as well as products like
The Mane Choice's control paste which leaves her with "shiny” edges, and a smoothing water-based gel followed by a spritz of hairspray. “People are always wondering how it looks so new when it’s not."
And while Scott otherwise keeps her beauty arsenal to a bare minimum, reaching only for coconut oil, which she uses as a cleanser, moisturizer,
and highlighter, she is loyal to a few feel-good tools: "My bag is always really heavy because of crystals," she says of stones such as chrysocolla, tigers eye, emerald, and celestite that she selects every morning to carry with her throughout her day. Also in tow? A deck of tarot cards, which have come in hand during the week's lulls. "Sometimes I’ll pull out a card during a certain situation for clarity. I pulled the star for this week, which is really, really crazy because the star basically means everything is in grace and coming to you." A sure sign that we'll be seeing more of her on the Fashion Week runways ahead.
She debuted as an exclusive at the Dior Resort 2019 show.
