Today, April 16th, 2023, is Zigleys birth date. Today is the day Zigleys’ founder had the idea for Zigleys and committed to make it a reality. 365 days later, here we are. With a line of 10 gorgeous, solid gold pieces, over 15 press features, including The Source, Madamenoire, Sheen Magazine, Yahoo, and LA Weekly, over 1000 mailing list subscribers, and multiple buyers across the United States, we’re so happy that we’re.
Zigleys (pronounced ZIG-leez), is the Black-owned, women-owned natural hair accessory company that’s elevating hair adornment. For a long time, the only options available to Black people for hair adornment have been beauty supply hair jewelry pieces for braids, locs and twists– chunky wooden beads, plastic that’s been molded and painted to look like metal or flimsy metal cuffs painted gold or silver that fade in color after only a few days of wear. And don’t forget how these items have snagged that favorite sweater or put a kink in your fresh braid set with their unfinished edges. The list of gripes with these low-quality products goes on and on.
Zigleys was born out of that frustration. When Zigleys’ founder, Daria Dana, found herself absolutely fed up with having cut-rate hair accessories as the only option for adorning her crown, she decided to do something about it.
“I was wearing quality shoes, handbags, fabrics, and fragrances, and I’m a firm believer in treating myself to the best that I’m able to, yet I was still wearing plastic and tin foil in my hair. It didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t align with how I live the rest of my life, and I knew I had to change it.”
Enter Zigleys, with a unique concept that could take world of modern fashion and high-end jewelry design by storm. As the premier supplier of luxury hair jewelry specifically for locs, braids and twists, Zigleys’ mission is to illuminate our beautiful cultural hairstyles through adornment with our elevated hair accessories. Crafted from high-quality diamonds and 18-karat gold, we believe fine jewelry adornment should begin at the crown.
Moreover, with all of the magic and glow we come with, Black people around the world deserve to adorn ourselves with what amounts to our ancestral legacy and birthright: BLACK LUXURY.
In Swagger Magazine, Dana expanded on these sentiments, saying, “Black hair is profoundly unique, culturally rich and special. I find it hard to absorb that we had few options to adorn our precious hair (which we invest a lot in for upkeep) in fine jewelry– and yet we willingly adorn every other part of our body in fine jewelry.”
And she’s right. Since our hair is considered our crown, it makes absolute sense to dress it with only the finest, heirloom quality pieces.
That’s why creating Zigleys was about more than looks for Dana.
Zigleys is about re-establishing legacy and cultural heritage. It’s about royalty and regalia. It’s about nodding back toward the ancient accomplishments of King Mansa Musa and the Ashanti, while also honoring the resilience it took for our ancestors to survive the Middle Passage and hundreds of years of slavery. It’s about courage like that embodied by Haitian revolutionary Dutty Boukman, and also the pride in the strength of accomplishments like Black Wall Street; it’s the legacy of self-love instilled by the Black Panther Party, all the way up to the present-day, where signs of Blackness are everywhere, even as everything from our hairstyles, to the shape of our lips is co-opted by mainstream culture.
Zigleys is a bold act of reclamation. And what’s even better, Dana is so serious about it being “by us and for all of us” who want it, she’s even made it attainable for all through Affirm’s “buy now, pay over time” plan.
So what’s next? You deciding that you’re worth the investment and that Zigleys is an heirloom that your future generations deserve. That’s what’s next.
Ready to experience something unlike anything you’ve seen, worn or adorned your crown with before?
Check out our Premier Collection to explore and find the style(s) of Zigleys that are right for you.
And don’t forget to say it loud: we’re Black and we’re proud.