It’s Not Just About the Hair

Aside from her husband and her brother, Craig, the man who’s seen Michelle Obama most consistently over the past few decades is her hairdresser, Michael “Rahni” Flowers, who has cut Obama’s hair since she was 18. When she first came into Van Cleef Hair Studio in Chicago’s Gold Coast, “she was ending her senior year in high school and was about to head off to college,” says Flowers, who owns and operates the salon with Daryl Wells, his partner of eight years. “She had a very broad view of the world around us, and she came across with a very humanitarian attitude as well.”

Although impressed by his young client, who was attending Princeton University that fall, Flowers couldn’t have guessed that she would someday be married to a serious contender for president of the United States -- that she might be first lady someday. Still, he says, “I knew that she was bound to do a lot in terms of giving back to the world.” And in the 27 years and hundreds of hair appointments since that first visit, he’s watched Obama do just that—everything from developing mentorship programs for inner-city kids to championing women’s causes.

Since Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee in June, Flowers has been flooded with interview requests. And that makes sense: The 53-year-old, who exudes an easygoing vibe straight out of the 1970s, knows Michelle Obama in a way that only he -- a man who works on her hair for two hours every week -- could. He styled her hair for the Obamas’ 1992 wedding, he celebrated birthdays with Michelle’s mother, and he’s frequented Obama fund-raisers. He clearly loves Michelle Obama. But the only interview request Flowers has accepted so far is from The Advocate, because he hopes gay people will give Michelle Obama an “open look” and discover what he has adored about her for nearly three decades.

Asked when Michelle first knew he was gay, Flowers says, “As soon as we met!” Not so much because of his appearance, he adds, but because he immediately felt comfortable talking about himself with her. “She used to always give me that feeling of openness and a very sensible curiosity. She’s more concerned with me being a good, kind, giving human being. The goodness that I have, the kindness I do in deeds -- those are the things that really matter to her.”

What impresses Flowers most about his client? That, despite the whirl of cameras and the security detail constantly surrounding her, she’s still the same grounded woman he met in 1981. “She’s been the same way -- that same way,” he says, nodding his head up and down in rhythmic unison with the last three syllables. “I think I probably appreciate her even more now because she still is the same -- so unpretentious and warm and earthy, just real easy.”

And although Obama’s classic hair flip has prompted some people to compare her to another famous wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, the man who is at least partly responsible for that look says the folks making that comparison aren’t seeing the whole Michelle Obama. Sure, she might resemble Kennedy on the outside, he says, “but on the inside, in terms of her manners and her worldview, she’s more like Eleanor Roosevelt. [Obama] is a hands-on kind of person; it’s important for her to get out there among the masses. And that was very much an Eleanor Roosevelt approach to being first lady.”