Dua Lipa hairstylist Anna Cofone on her Hackney studio Hair and Care

Her work has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and GQ, to name a few.

Yet it is Hair and Care, the Hackney-based non-profit organisation that she founded in 2019, that resonates with her the most.

“The mission was to really create something whereby women and young girls could come to my studio in Hackney and where we could teach them really simple, accessible hair care and hairstyling skills,” she told the Gazette.

There was also a strong personal significance to this project.

“I wanted to create something that would give community, but specifically to blind and low-vision people, primarily because I have got lived experience.

“My father, who passed away in 2009, had retinitis pigmentosa [a group of eye disorders that cause deteriorating vision over time].”

Dua Lipa at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in March. Her hair has previously been styled by Anna Cofone (Image: PA)

Since 2019, as a team of just three staff members, Hair and Care has helped more than 500 blind or partially sighted women and girls learn how to style their hair.

“We get them to identify what their hair type is, what their texture feels like,” Anna said.

“Every new participant receives a complimentary gift bag that includes a full range of hairstyling products and hairstyling tools, like brushes, accessories.”

Hair and Care has now been shortlisted at the National Diversity Awards in two separate categories: community organisation and positive role model.

There were more than 80,000 entries overall, and whilst Anna is proud of “such a big, big achievement”, she emphasised that the impact of the nomination is more important to her than winning.

Hundreds have learnt at Hair and Care since it started in 2019 (Image: Makoda Takei)

“I think for us, it’s more about having opportunities like this [interview] to build awareness […] we need more hairstylists to volunteer, and we want to reach more blind and low-vision people that might be in Hackney or Tower Hamlets.”

Anna added that the primary aim of the workshops is for visually impaired women and girls to “make hair a part of their self-care”, the same way, she said, that fully sighted women would style their hair or do their makeup in a morning.

Hair and Care has also worked on nine fashion shows for various designers, including Chet Lo, S.S. Daley, and Sinead O’Dwyer.

Each person who participates in one of Hair and Care’s workshops is invited to a runaway show at London Fashion Week.

“It’s this really wonderful, full circle initiative,” Anna said.

“The emphasis is on hair and beauty and fashion, but the impact is this huge, huge ripple effect, because it’s also helping blind and low vision people feel better represented.”

Anna has even bigger goals for the next few years at Hair and Care.

“Our mission is to help make all hair brands inclusive and accessible, and to get to a point where we are helping an electrical [hair] tools brand to develop an inclusive and accessible range of heated tools that’s got sound, that’s got raised markings.

"That’s where we want to get to.”

The results of the National Diversity Awards will be announced on September 18.