How Hairstylists Crafted the Sinners Cast’s Red Carpet Braids—and Challenged the Norm
7 min readRed carpet glam can be predictable: Think glossy strands, taut updos, silky-soft hair that bounces when someone turns toward the cameras. That kind of polish has long been treated as the language of Hollywood glamour, and by extension, the definition of beauty.
But the Sinners cast has been singing a very different tune.
During the press run and awards campaign this past year, the stars of the film chose to wear a variety of braided hairstyles that stood out: Director Ryan Coogler sported intricate cornrows with designs nodding to moments in the film. Supporting Actress nominee Wunmi Mosaku wore lush braids that spiraled and curved across her head, sometimes accenting her natural hair. Jayme Lawson recently appeared in a remixed version of classic cornrows. And newcomer Miles Caton has debuted styles like carefully mapped stitch braids as he enters the spotlight.
Individually, they’re striking styles. Collectively, they’re a reminder that prestige does not have to mean conformity—or leaning away from Blackness. Wearing braids in high-visibility, high-stakes moments, like the Oscars, can feel like an ultra-stylish refusal of outdated norms, and a return to cherished rituals of adornment passed down through generations.
It also ties back to Sinners itself, a supernatural Southern Gothic set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi that explores Black culture, music, and folklore passed down through history. The film went on to earn a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations—the most ever for a single film—and won four Academy Awards Sunday night: Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Best Original Screenplay for Ryan Coogler, Best Original Score for Ludwig Göransson, and Best Cinematography for Autumn Durald Arkapaw.
The cast’s statement-making hairstyles also highlight the meticulous craft of the women behind them, in a space long defined by Eurocentric beauty standards.
Wunmi Mosaku wore multiple braided looks by Dionne Smith throughout her Sinners run.
When Mosaku prepped for the London stretch of the Sinners press tour, she turned to friend and longtime collaborator Dionne Smith, an international celebrity hairstylist. (Araxi Lindsey oversaw her looks during press in North America.) “She was like, ‘Dionne, I want something that talks to the ancestors. I want African-inspired. Everything that we’ve done had some type of braid element,’” Smith recalls. “It was just such a beautiful thing to see.”
For the BAFTAs, Smith even threaded small rings into Mosaku’s braids after noticing the details in her gown. From the front, the style featured four afro puffs that resembled a butterfly. “Everything for me is intentional,” she says. “I saw the swirls in the dress and thought the rings would complement that shape and catch the light on the red carpet—and on stage if she won.” Sure enough, Mosaku took home the award for Best Supporting Actress that night.
The woman behind Ryan Coogler’s press-tour braids is his usual braider Tyzanna Bailey, who also happens to be his cousin. Bailey started doing hair in childhood and became the go-to person in the family for braided hairstyles.
Coogler’s looks, on average, took around three hours to create. “We always do hearts, but the hearts during the press run correlated to the ‘fellowship and love’ line said by Remmick in the movie,” Bailey says. Other design flourishes have included a braided cross, and a guitar and treble clef for the Oscars—a nod to how music is threaded throughout the film while also reflecting Coogler’s love for music.
Ryan Coogler wore braids inspired by Sinners as he accepted his Oscar.
The back of Coogler’s head was adorned with a treble clef-shaped braid that paid homage to his film.
“I’m glad to see braids becoming more of a thing that we’re getting comfortable wearing for those big moments,” Bailey says. “Braids definitely communicate something that other hairstyles can’t. I wish more people felt comfortable wearing braids and expressing themselves through them.
“I feel braids represent history, identity, creativity, and tradition—a tradition that has been passed down through generations. It’s a form of cultural expression. For some it’s storytelling; wearing braids can connect to heritage while also being able to show off your own style and creativity at the same time.”
Hollywood has long rehearsed a narrow script for what a leading lady should be: thin, desirable, unthreatening, and fair-skinned, or at least as close to whiteness as casting will allow. Her hair falls straight or is obediently styled. The subtext has remained consistent: Not too loud. Not too political. Not too much. And certainly not too Black.
A close-up of Jayme Lawson’s braids, also by Smith.
This version of femininity—and the expectation that women comply with it—can be deeply emotionally draining and traumatic. It requires a constant adjusting of the body: smoothing the hair, softening the voice, sanding down the edges. For many women, it’s a daily negotiation between what feels natural and what feels acceptable.
And when someone refuses that script, the reaction can be telling.
In 2015, when then 18-year-old Zendaya appeared on the Oscars red carpet wearing faux locs—a traditional Black hairstyle—television host Giuliana Rancic joked that they probably smelled like “patchouli oil or weed.” The comment drew swift backlash and spotlighted the casual racism Black hair has long been subjected to in public spaces.
For years on Hollywood sets, department heads have failed to deliver proper care and treatment for Black hair, leaving actors to shoulder the emotional and physical labor of preparing their own hair or navigating an environment that doesn’t fully support their styling needs. Though this is slowly shifting, the change is long overdue.
Mosaku said she wanted to wear hairstyles “that [talk] to the ancestors.”
The scrutiny isn’t limited to Hollywood. In schools, workplaces, and public institutions across the United States, natural hairstyles like braids, locs, and afros have long been treated as distractions or violations of dress codes. The passage of the CROWN Act in 2019 in multiple states—legislation designed to prohibit hair discrimination—exists precisely because those biases have had real-life consequences.
Long before the stars hit the red carpet, the work begins in hotel suites, living rooms, and backstage dressing areas. Their stylists get up close and personal, fingers moving methodically as combs carve geometric sections into their scalps, pulling strands taut, each loop and twist carrying hours of patience and ancestral knowledge. The process generally takes hours—sometimes days, depending on the complexity of the style. Patterns must be mapped and sectioned. The scalp becomes a canvas.
“Braids are a striking look, kind of like when someone colors their hair,” says Los Angeles-based hairstylist Evalyn Denis, who created Caton’s stitch braid style.
Miles Caton wears clean braids at the 2026 Golden Globes.
When Caton began thinking about how he wanted to present himself during the Sinners press run, Denis says the process quickly became collaborative.
“He did a great job of giving me a baseline of what he was going for,” she explains. “He has a haircut within his ’fro, and we ended up doing these really wavy zigzag tiny braids with stitch braids alongside the six braids we landed on.”
The design typically takes two to three hours. But the full process on Caton—washing, blow-drying, and braiding—took about five and a half, says Denis. “It was cool to see him not just be like, ‘Can I just do some classic straightbacks?’ When he pops out, it’s clean and it’s beautiful.”
A braided hairstyle can also be a meaningful celebration of self, explains Denis. “It really does show off your features. You’re not hiding behind hair. That’s extremely important and it sets the tone for confidence, even if you’re nervous.”
Miles Caton at the NAACP Image Awards in February.
Still, the technical skill behind braiding is often misunderstood within the beauty industry. In cosmetology programs, Denis says, braiding is often treated as a minor subsection of hairstyling rather than a discipline in its own right.
“There’s still a technical side to braiding that I don’t know is truly recognized legally,” she says. “It’s not just a chapter in a book—it could be a whole semester.”
That gap in recognition can appear in subtler ways too: unrealistic booking timelines, lacking credit for glam teams on editorial shoots, or the lingering assumption that braiding is somehow less complex than other forms of hairstyling.
“It’s tough to just say [you’re a] ‘braider,’” says Denis, who studied cut, color, and the gamut of haircare in cosmetology school. “There’s a connotation there unfortunately. It locks you into one category when the work actually involves so many different skills.”
Behind the scenes: Dionne Smith (left) does Wunmi Mosaku’s (right) braids before an event.
The end result.
“I’ve intentionally said I’m not a braider,” adds Smith, who was also formally trained in cosmetology school. “A lot of braiders get classed as unprofessional hairdressers because many of them only braid and some are self-taught—and there’s nothing wrong with that. I used to braid my sisters’ hair—that’s how I learned. I wasn’t trained in braiding. I just had two sisters and traditional Caribbean parents who said, ‘You look after your sisters and do their hair for the school week. That’s your duty as the big sister.’”
At the same time, she notes, braided styles require far more technical knowledge than many people realize.
“You’re working with hair, so you have to understand the science of it,” Smith says. “If someone got a relaxer a week ago, they shouldn’t have braids until another two weeks. If the hair is pulled too tight, if the direction of the braids is wrong—those things can cause damage.” There’s a real skill to doing it properly, but braiders could also benefit from more technical support from across the industry, Smith adds.
“Braids take time; they take patience. It’s almost like trying to create a masterpiece strand by strand,” Bailey says. But the hard work that goes into braided hairstyles, especially those on the red carpet this season, pays off in an impactful way. “I think Ryan has done a great job showing how important it is to represent culture and still have the best style while doing it. When you think of Ryan, the first thing you probably think of are his braids and his mustache.”
Coogler wore a heart-shaped braid at the Sinners European premiere in London in April 2025.
And he wore a cross design to the New York premiere earlier that month.
A braided crown at a premiere or awards show might seem like a simple styling choice, but to someone watching from home, it affirms self-acceptance, reminding us that the definition of beauty has never been singular—and it doesn’t have to be.
You don’t have to be an Oscar nominee to embrace the style either. When it comes to getting braids—whether it’s for everyday wear or special occasions—the consensus is to go for it.
“It’s one of those looks that’s timeless,” says Denis. “So you can’t ever go wrong with having a braided look on any carpet, and I’m glad that now we’re at a place where people love it.”
