“I’ve always felt an outfit is not complete until you top it off with a gorgeous headwrap,” says Imani McFarlane.
The headwrapping guru and fashion designer’s twisted, sometimes towering, cloth creations crown coifs with a touch of class and culture unmatched by a hat or hair clip.
The granddaughter of a master Jamaican seamstress, McFarlane is a single mother of three who took her first art classes, beginning at age 10, at the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. She studied fashion merchandising at Fisher College before starting her design studio, House of Tafari Collection, with $20, six yards of fabric and a vision to create clothing and accessories that celebrate African heritage and culture.
Her aesthetic honors her Afro-Caribbean ancestry, but she’s quick to point out that headwraps aren’t culturally specific: “Headwraps are worn in so many different countries for different reasons — in India, in Europe on the runway. It’s a fashionable accessory. And once people know how to create them, it becomes second nature, like putting on a t-shirt or a pair of jeans.”
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