by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
April 7, 2025
Pageant organizers hope the modifications will permit extra girls to take part.
The Miss Ivory Coast Pageant has launched a surprising new rule for contestants’ look.
The pageant for the West African nation has introduced a ban on all wig and weave extensions. As an alternative, it desires members to showcase the great thing about their pure hair.
The Ivorian competitors will forbid these vying for the crown from carrying faux hair or hair extensions in its preliminary levels. These qualifying occasions will happen in 13 cities and two worldwide slots.
Whereas the foundations restrict the hairstyles, contestants can nonetheless put on tinheritor actual hair in any style they select. Nevertheless, the pageants wish to distance themselves from selling beauty surgical procedure and pores and skin lightening.
“We would like the candidates to be pure – whether or not with braids or straightened hair, it needs to be their very own. Magnificence should be uncooked,” Victor Yapobi, president of the Miss Ivory Coast organizing committee, informed the BBC.
The organizers hope to encourage contestants to embrace their pure magnificence. In addition they determined to remove sure expensive boundaries that forestall many from competing.
Whereas the brand new rule permits girls to spend much less on their hairstyles, different modifications to the doorway price and age necessities permit extra to check out. Now, girls on the age of 28 can enter, and for $30 lower than prior years, with the lowered value now at $50.
Yapobi added, “This transformation in standards is as a result of we noticed these younger girls had been placing up some huge cash to take part, and it was turning into a little bit of a funds drain.”
Whereas some have praised the modifications, others have condemned the “assault” on common faux hair types like wigs. Deemed “protecting types,” these appears provide girls extra creativity with their hair expression, whereas not damaging their actual tresses.
Alternatively, the brand new guidelines require some contestants to mirror on what makes them really feel lovely to others.
“I’d see different women with lengthy, synthetic hair, they usually seemed so lovely,” 21-year-old Emmanuella Dali, a 21-year-old actual property agent, stated to the publication. “This rule provides me extra delight as a girl – as an African lady.”
Wigs are a preferred hair kind in West Africa and throughout the Black diaspora. Nevertheless, the stark change within the pageant displays a development towards pure magnificence and hair. Wigs are additionally a dear funding in girls’s look, with human-hair items costing a whole bunch to 1000’s of {dollars}.
Some hairdressers are involved that the pageant’s new declaration will lower gross sales and their very own income. Nevertheless, in a tradition the place one’s pure hair continues to be thought of inappropriate in some skilled settings, the ruling seeks to vary the narrative.
Regardless of this, some naysayers say girls ought to outline their very own magnificence and never have pageants decide these requirements. For individuals who see each side of the problem, acceptance of ladies no matter their pure or altered hairstyling stays the precedence.
So far, the ban solely applies to the preliminary rounds. Yapobi has not disclosed if the 15 contestants who will compete on the principle stage should adhere to the controversial guideline. The official pageant will happen on the finish of June in Abidjan.
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