Happy New Year From Our Editors: A Toast to Black Women
- Black women shone in entertainment, music, and film, breaking records and claiming 'firsts'.
- Natural hair, bold fashion, and sports-meets-high-fashion defined the year's beauty and style.
- Despite challenges, Black women's resilience, celebration of joy, and community support empowered the path forward.
From the Editors
Welcome to the first day of 2026—a time of reflection, celebration, and depending on what you did at midnight, a time of recovery. Some of us are easing into the morning quietly. Some of us are still in last night’s glam.
But all of us – who are reading this post – made it.
And before we totally jump into the New Year stilettos first, we take time to pause. 2025 was not a year to play with. If you’re like many of us, you went through some things. You know people who went through some things. And you’re stronger because of it.
That alone is something to celebrate on this new day as we kick off 2026.
Black Women Set The Tone In 2025 — Everywhere
We also take time to shout out ourselves – Black women. To paraphrase Niecy Nash, we want to thank us. Because 2025 was a year for Black women to shine despite everything happening around us.
We deserve our flowers.
Last year, we watched Black women love out loud. Soft love. Loud love. New love. Long love. We let joy lead. We let softness coexist with strength—powerful and vulnerable.
Every day of 2025, we listened, but didn’t judge.
And we did all of this while still winning. Across entertainment, music, and film, Black women broke records and collected “firsts” like receipts. Grammys. Prestigious awards. Historic wins. We clocked it as women took over stages and cleared rooms with their attitudes, outfits, and undeniable presence.
From Bobs To Boots On The Ground
Beauty showed all the way up in 2025.
Natural hair was celebrated—protective styles, afros, locs, and silk presses. Bobs were nasty and chic—within seconds, we became “Bobiana.” And lace fronts were downright magical. “What lace?” became a rhetorical question as we saw endless styles through custom wigs and units. Pixie cuts and bold colors showed off cheekbones and makeup looks complemented every transformation.
Fashion followed suit.
We were fully back outside—wearing our clothes again, sometimes repeating outfits, yet always setting the tone. And yes, our boots were on the ground. From a viral line dance to the cultural takeover sparked by Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter era, cowboy couture had us in a chokehold.
As did the color burgundy, ’90s style, and archival fashion.
Sports and high fashion collided. The tunnel became a runway. Courtside seats remained places for street style inspiration. Angel Reese stepped into fashion spaces that once felt closed—and made them hers. Come on VS Angel! A’ja Wilson didn’t just dominate the court; she became a cultural force off the paint, and her fits reflected that.
As we go into 2026, this is all the energy we need.
Because if any previous year taught us anything, it’s that this year won’t be easy. But we’ve handled worse—and we’ve celebrated better.
So whether you’re under a table eating grapes, still rebranding yourself in the middle of the night, updating a website or vision board, or simply letting it all go, we got this. Cheers to our wins, our losses, and to the struggles that shaped us.
And cheers to us, Black women. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year From Our Editors: A Toast to Black Women was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
