THIS VIDEO WAS TAKEN DOWN BY THE WOMAN IT WAS ABOUT. WE’RE SORRY YOU CANNOT VIEW IT.

Hairstory Studio in downtown Manhattan calls itself part think-tank, photo studio, art space, and production house…challenging beauty stereotypes through the art of cutting, coloring, and styling hair.

The brainchild of Bumble and Bumble founder Michael Gordon, each month Hairstory welcomes a handful of people from all walks of life into its studio for fresh cuts, color, and portraits. AND to tell their story through their hair.  Of all the stories, and befores-and-afters we watched on Hairstory’s site, we find Oakley’s to be the most deeply personal and unexpected.

Having lost her partner, she wanted to find a way to transform her self and her grief, and find new expression for that very important relationship and her very changed life. She did it through her hair, dying it a beautiful gray, echoing ash.

Grief and loss especially are unchartered paths that demand original thinking and improvisation.