A good hair day is a gift, but when it comes to the holidays, Oribe raises the bar every year by collaborating with a maker on a collection that keeps on giving. For 2024, the cult favorite brand chose African artist Thandiwe Muriu as their partner.
The Kenyan creative designed the packaging for six luxurious gift boxes inspired by her heritage and rooted in the community that instilled in her a deep sense of confidence. There’s an African proverb that sums up the spirit of the collection: “When your sister does your hair, you do not need a mirror.”
“I think of hair as a language,” Muriu shared with Grazia USA over breakfast in Los Angeles just before a celebration for the collection. “It’s a universal language that transcends culture, boundaries.” And she believes that all women are fluent in its power. “Every woman has that same feeling when you go get a good haircut or hairstyle and it makes you feel more beautiful, more seen, more visible.”
It’s no surprise, then, that Muriu uses hair in her art. The artist, whose first memory of hair is seeing her mother at the salon and dreaming of one day feeling as beautiful, photographs subjects with intricately woven then sculpted styles, meant to symbolize their natural beauty and strength, wearing eyewear made from upcycled materials, set against African textiles. The packaging for the Oribe collection mirrors her craft. She created two textile patterns rich in symbolism, based on traditional Kenyan Ankara prints.
To create the designs, she riffed off of the notions of unity and her feeling that Oribe is more than just a brand that sells products, but a community that celebrates hair, which felt very familiar. “In my culture, hair is communal.” So for the print called “A Cycle of Togetherness,” she looked to the curl pattern of her hair. “It’s tight, circular, but so gorgeous,” she says. “But I also see a bit of the Oribe Goddess in the design.”
Indeed, it’s this unique vision that makes the holiday collections so special. “The key is getting that level of collaboration and love,” says co-founder and president Daniel Kaner. And the result is bringing new consumers to the brand who see the story through the lens of the artist, making it that much more meaningful — and relatable.
For the “Strands of History” design, a wavy thread throughout the pattern is a nod to the shape of the neck of the Curl Gloss Hydration & Hold bottle. “For the first pattern, I was thinking of the Oribe brand as a family,” she explains. For the second, she looked to the popular product range that helps users express their own sense of beauty.
While the bold colors of the patterns recall rich African tapestry, they’re also meant to impart a jolt of warmth. “The holidays can be stressful,” Muriu says. “A big part of my identity as an artist is I want to create happy art. I want to relive warm memories and celebrate the beauty in the moments we forget or we don’t see. And I want to pass that on to the people who are interacting with the products. We wanted these sets to create a moment of joy in the middle of the holidays.”
Sustainable materials are something to feel good about too. The recyclable boxes are made from 100% post-consumer fiber paper printed with soy inks.
Shop the full collection at Oribe.com.
