Philadelphia artist empowers Black hair, Black history through collectable dolls
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Philadelphia-based artist is challenging the stigmatized perceptions of Black hair with her collection of diverse dolls.
"I consider myself a multi-disciplined griot. A griot is a storyteller and I believe every doll has a story," Tiffani Dean, creator of La Diva Dolls, said.
Through her one-of-a-kind collectible dolls, Dean is rewriting a narrative that many Black women and girls have learned about their hair.
"Society taught us that there was something wrong with your hair," Dean says.
At her home in Philadelphia, Dean has been crafting "La Diva Dolls" for the past 27 years.
From kinky afro puffs to honey blonde voluminous crimps, the hair textures and styles run the gamut, initially inspired by her daughter.
"Black dolls didn't look like us. It wasn't a direct reflection of us other than their skin was Brown. Their hair was still straight," Dean said. "My daughter, her hair, you just wet her hair and it draws up to her head and the curls just start springing out. And they go every which way. So, I created dolls that look like her, that look like me. That looks like so many other women and children."
"Messages from our childhood, even to now, tell us the value of ourselves with just a seed that was planted in us around our hair." Sharea Farmer, a racial trauma therapist said.
Farmer often discusses hair and identity with her adolescent and adult clients.
Shuler: "Why is it that for Black women, our hair is one of the first indicators of our identity and beauty?"
Farmer: "Whether we like it or not, the underlying conversations around our hair are attached to our attractiveness. It's attached to what's assumed to be attractive in our society according to how White people judge my hair and how I judge myself against them. And to be able to have those conversations now out loud that says, no, I'm still enough, I've always been enough, regardless if I'm locked, straight, wig, bald. I'm still enough as I am."
"We have to be diligent about putting out representation, so that we truly accept who we are, and love ourselves in that state," Dean said.
Going against the grain and creating something beautiful in the process.