Amandla Stenberg Casually Rocked Unshaven Armpits on the Red Carpet

Amandla Stenberg has always been upfront about where they stand—Stenberg identifies as nonbinary and prefers the gender neutral pronouns they/them—on beauty standards: In September, they wrote an essay about their relationship with their hair and how it tied into different iterations of their identity, including their blackness, their sexuality, and their gender. When it finally came down to shaving it off for a role, however, Stenberg found it liberating: "Shaving my head was wild. I felt a sense of complete neutrality. It was so freeing. This summer I came out as gay, and I must say, having no hair made me feel even more comfortable with my gender and sexuality," they wrote. On Saturday night, Stenberg played around with another beauty standard—the one that dictates that women shave their body hair—by pairing underarm hair with Valentino.

On Saturday, Stenberg walked the red carpet at the European premiere of The Hate U Give, debuting as part of the 62nd BFI London Film Festival in a deep-plunge Valentino gown that revealed the presence of underarm hair, a moment that was later posted to Instagram captioned "#drama #armpit".

Stenberg's never been known to go for the pastel-colored gowns other stars wear to events—instead, as Marley Dias wrote for Glamour recently, Stenberg seems to prefer clothing that makes a statement, like "burnt-orange suits and sleek dresses." On Saturday, however, they let the black, classically beautiful dress take a backseat, using it to casually highlight their underarm hair instead—and letting that be the low-key statement for the night. It's like Stenberg told Glamour in a recent interview: "I want to express myself as authentically as I can."

A few other Gen Z celebs have stepped out sans shave recently, too: Paris Jackson hit the 2017 VMAs red carpet in similar form...

....and Bella Thorne is another celeb who's chosen to nix the razor for public appearances.

To shave or not to shave, that is the question as we dash through a shower every morning—but luckily, it's one where there's no "correct" answer.

The pronouns in this article have been updated to reflect Stenberg's identification as nonbinary.

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