The theme of the first issue is braided hair – we speak to the auteur about the history of the hairstyle, moving to a multi-cultural metropolis and Instagram

I’m getting ready to say goodbye to FKA twigs. “Do you want to hear a bit of my new album?” she asks. “Yes!” I squeal, without skipping a beat. Then I look at the expression on her face... of course, that was never going to happen. twigs, aka Tahliah Debrett Barnett, is direct, and she’s funny. We’re at a studio in East London where she’s recording (I’m kept waiting downstairs for a few minutes as she’s in the flow of a session), to discuss her latest project, an Instagram magazine called AVANTgarden. The first ever issue is striking and formatted specifically for the flick-through slide function of the platform. Focusing on braided hairstyles, twigs has developed animalistic, barbershop-inspired imagery, showing beautiful braid patterns curling around the scalps of her friends, with Ghana braids, durags and beads adorning their heads. It’s intimately tied to her sense of blackness, something which she hasn’t spoken about in depth since she was being harassed online back in 2014. At the time she wrote on Twitter: “I am genuinely shocked and disgusted at the amount of racism that has been infecting my account the past week. Racism is unacceptable in the real world, and it’s unacceptable online.” Now, she says, she wants to start a conversation with other people of colour about another issue that directly affects us and is often tied to racism: the trauma and beauty attached to our hair. Of course, being a black celebrity doesn’t automatically qualify one as a spokesperson for the community and she herself is adamant that the magazine is set to be a learning process, a jumping off point for her to develop knowledge about particular topics. We sat down with her to find out more.

What was the reason for choosing Instagram as a format? FKA twigs: I’ve struggled to feel comfortable on social media as I’m a very private person and I find it hard to share the things I’m doing on an everyday level. It feels so intrusive and weird to me. But, if it’s something I can put creativity into and I can have certain amount of imagination and control around it, it makes me feel much more comfortable. I thought it would be much more impactful to create something like this, rather than to put out a picture with some words underneath it, or retweet something. I thought it would spark a conversation. I think for me it’s my way of interacting with people that follow me in an honest way without me cringing at myself. Because it is cringe sometimes. Why not create something that can bring an artistic community together? And on a practical level, what do you think Instagram brings? FKA twigs: I just find it interesting if I wanted to know who was on the cover of Dazed, I would definitely see it on Instagram before I would see it in the shops. As far as I’m aware, no-one’s done a monthly magazine with a beautiful layout and thought of it that way on Instagram. Rather than posting selfies or pictures of your cups of coffee or avocado toast, I thought it would be exciting to see people using it in more of a creative way to express themselves. I would love to make it into a physical thing eventually, or it can be put in a gallery, or it can be on a website. Where were the images taken? FKA twigs: The pictures were taken in my house. Friends and everyone came down and we were all just laughing and cooking pasta, listening to music. It was a very chill day. Who did the hairstyling? FKA twigs: Rio Sreedharan. I’ve been working for him for just about a year now and it’s been really interesting working with a hair stylist who thinks so much about protecting my hair. When I first started my journey of being an artist four years ago, I had hair down to here (gestures) and through the years it just got shorter and shorter and shorter, because you’re having so many people touch it, style it and use heat. Working with Rio, he does protect my hair and he is literally so fast at braiding. He did all those hairstyles in the magazine in one day. Ten people with different things in seven hours.

How much do you know about the history of braids? FKA twigs: One of the girls, Chanel, said the hairstyle that she has in the magazine is actually from her grandma’s tribe – the Ashanti tribe in Ghana. I thought that was quite special. It was really fun looking at the heritage of braids because of course, different braids mean different things. There’s braid patterns which are for fertility, or because you want to get married. You know cornrows started because slaves would draw maps in the braids of how to escape the plantations? I think it’s important that we own our heritage and we know these things. It’s awful, but It makes me feel proud of them. I feel proud that they did that to release themselves from pain. That’s a beautiful thing. Through braids some people found their liberty. That’s why I think the community should be able to feel like they can wear braids with a suit and still look really smart, or their natural texture with suit and still feel really smart. And it’s nice because you do have one girl with her natural texture in there as well... FKA twigs: Because that’s really important. I’m not saying, “get braids”. I’m saying embrace your heritage, embrace your hair texture, embrace protective styles. I know I’m going to put my hair away during winter because it’s not going to like the cold or the rain. Soon I’ll put my hair away and it’ll come out in the spring. I own that. “You know cornrows started because slaves would draw maps in the braids of how to escape the plantations? I think it’s important that we own our heritage and we know these things” – FKA twigs I was wondering about the aesthetic of the magazine. It feels a bit animalistic with the cat eyes and pan-African themes.

FKA twigs: Like, I’m an alien (laughs), so that’s kind of the aesthetic I like. It was inspired by growing up and becoming a young lady in south London. You walk past the black barber shops and see the muted colours they have, the styles you could pick. The posters would always be old, faded and peeling off the wall. You’d pick ‘number four’. It was inspired by that. It seems quite romantic to me, the way those photos are taken. There’s always a certain amount of aspiration, romance and hope. Those pictures we’ve all grown up with are so strong and hopeful, inspired by romance and pride. What were you thinking with the captions? Some of them seemed a bit satirical, playing on the names of black beauty products? FKA twigs: Exactly, it was a kind of regrowth of these slogans we see on our hair lotions and stuff. It’s always very happy and aspirational, which is so funny because there’s so much pain behind it. ’The natural choice’ and ‘nature’s beauty’. But there’s a lot of pain and misunderstanding behind grooming our hair, and that’s really sad.