Anthony PhamSave this storySave this story
Every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night for nine weeks, eight musicians and two backup dancers join Harry Styles on stage to perform a two-hour show at one of the most famous arenas in the world, Madison Square Garden. Among them is Laura Bibbs, a 29-year-old trumpet player and composer. She not only supports Styles’ band but sings a moving rendition of his hit “Sweet Creature” midway through the show with saxophone player Lorren Chiodo. She’s caught the attention of many people online, including us here at Allure, because of her incredible talents—and also, her incredible hair.
Bibbs has played the trumpet for as long as she can remember, and it became her professional calling as a teenager. “In high school, I had decided that this was the only thing that I wanted to do, and I made it my life's goal to play trumpet professionally,” she says over Zoom, one day before the 19th show of Styles’ New York City residency. But her dream wasn’t always to perform alongside a former One Direction member, let alone to sold-out crowds at MSG—it was to be part of an orchestra.
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Back then, she always wore her hair slicked-back in a bun with pearl earrings. “That was my look then,” she says. “Historically, Western classical music is conservative. It’s very European, Caucasian-looking, so being a Black woman in the orchestra was already an anomaly. A woman playing trumpet is uncommon, but then to be a Black woman playing trumpet is extraordinarily uncommon. I wasn’t trying to stand out all the time.”
Bibbs straightened her hair all throughout high school and college, but around 2022 she began experimenting with her natural curl pattern while working on Styles’ Love on Tour, which ran from 2021 to 2023. Back then, she was still trying to figure out her style. “I was in my early 20s, and I was so scared of everything, and I didn't want to do much. I didn't even really know how to put makeup on,” she says. “I was just caking glitter on my face, I was doing a lot of braided styles, and I fried my hair, too.”
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That happened in 2022, when Bibbs received “a very bad balayage,” where her natural color was lifted to an extremely light blonde in one session. “It was devastating,” she says, and that experience sparked what she calls her “curly journey.” “About a month later I had found a stylist who helped me recover my curls through some Keratin treatments. Despite all the damage, he revived my curl pattern. It was the first time I appreciated what I had,” she recalls. That specific stylist taught her a few techniques to style her hair, including using a dime-sized amount of gel with a quarter-sized amount of leave-in and running it through her curls.
The musician wore her natural, full-out curls on stage for the first time in 2024, when she was on the road with Mumford & Sons. “I made it my goal to just be,” she says. “This is who I am. My natural hair is curly, it’s really big, and I'm just going to start performing this way. It was scary and uncomfortable at first… It's been this ongoing thing of me just being like, no, just do the natural look, rock it."
This wasn’t decided on a whim for Bibbs, but rather the result of developing a more positive relationship with her natural hair. “I started learning more about my hair type and texture and what I need to style it, and I think that that helped me fall in love with my curls being out,” she says. She describes herself as a die-hard Shea Moisture fan, specifically the brand’s Jamaican Black Castor Oil Strengthen & Restore leave-in conditioner, and she loves having the Kurl Fusion Multitextures Gel Cream on hand to style her hair.
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Now, Bibbs washes her hair once or twice a week. “It’s taken a while to know what’s right for me and it’s been a journey of trial and error,” she says. “I research products, which could have perfect reviews, so I try it and then maybe it just doesn’t work for me, and that’s okay. Dialing in my routine has been a process of accepting not every product is going to work for me.”
A musical performance like the Together, Together tour—where dancing is encouraged, strobe lights are plenty, and Styles performs a club-inspired EDM set—allows some freedom when it comes to self-expression. At the beginning of the tour, Bibbs experimented with color in her hair for the first time, opting for bright-red braids that stood out under the glow of the stage lights. “I felt like I had this confidence in a different way. I was like, Oh, I'm this new character that I haven't seen or felt [before], and I thought that was a cool thing to live and experience,” she says of the style. “I was really nervous and uncomfortable when I first got them done, because I was like, This is so out there for me. I wear black, I like being invisible, but now … I want to try it again and try different colors.”
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Besides her hair, Bibbs is also experimenting with makeup for this gig. She doesn’t do her glitter eyeshadow herself, though—we have hair and makeup artist Ayae Yamamoto to thank for each performer’s looks, including Styles’. “When my glam is right and my hair is right, I definitely feel way better and more confident going out there,” she says. “I didn't grow up wearing makeup. I don't really wear makeup on the regular. Learning what I like in performance makeup and what looks good on me has been really helpful in feeling like myself on stage.” Currently, she’s all about a bold eyeliner and a bright sparkly eyeshadow with face gems.
Bibbs on stage during the show.
Anthony Pham
While her off-stage look is more pared back, Bibbs is enjoying leaning into the aesthetic of whatever artist she’s working with. “I'm just following the creative image that the tour is, and I love the bold colors. Previously working with Mumford & Sons, I was wearing a lot of denim, a lot of Levis, a lot of earth tones, and a lot of black, which I loved because that was the vibe at that time,” she says. “Now I'm in this new era where I feel like I hung up my Levi's jackets and my boots, and it's cool to feel like I’m stepping into other people's artistic palettes.”
After the show, Bibbs gets back home to Brooklyn around midnight and starts her wind-down routine—a sequence of steps that seems incredibly laid back for someone who just performed to a packed crowd at MSG. “I'll have some snacks, chill, decompress, and then I'll start taking the makeup off because the glitter and gems take a minute,” she says. “I'll put the Caudalie oil makeup remover on and start dissolving my eye stuff, get in the shower, do my cleansers.” Once she’s washed away the sparkles, she’s ready to rest—that is, until the next show.
