HUE Affair 10th Anniversary: Ylorie Taylor’s Vision, Legacy & Impact

HUE Affair 10th Anniversary marks a decade of intention, sisterhood, and cultural impact — and the woman steering it into its next era is doing so with vision, strategy, and heart. Ylorie Taylor is that woman. When she stepped into the role of Curator of HUE Affair, she didn’t just take over an event; she picked up a torch that was already burning bright and made it blaze.

This year, HUE Affair — which stands for Hair Unites Everyone — celebrates its 10th anniversary with a national series of activations, a landmark corporate partnership with CVS, and an expanded programming slate that proves this is no longer just a hair show. It never really was. But now, under Ylorie’s stewardship, the whole world is starting to see it.

“If my lived experience, if my relationships — which I consider my currency — couldn’t elevate this platform, then I was doing it a disservice.”

From Hair Show to Ecosystem

HUE Affair was born in Brooklyn in 2016, the brainchild of Sabrina Boissiere, who launched the event at the height of the natural hair movement — a time when Black women were loudly reclaiming their coils, kinks, and curls, and the beauty industry was scrambling to catch up. Boissiere recognized a void where BIPOC and women-owned brands could co-exist and serve the multicultural consumer on their own terms. What started as a Brooklyn marketplace grew to cities including Atlanta, Chicago, D.C., Philadelphia, and even pioneered the first natural hair-focused beauty event at Austin’s SXSW.

When Ylorie entered the picture, HUE had already amassed thousands of loyal attendees and a reputation as the premier beauty expo serving the northeastern corridor. But Ylorie saw something others may have overlooked: a business.

“The first thing I did from a business perspective was look at where the revenue streams were and what the expenses were,” she told Bacon Magazine in an exclusive interview. “I’m always concerned about — how do we make money? Where are we spending it? Is this model sustainable?” Her background as a strategic consultant, fractional founder, and brand architect had trained her eyes to see platforms, not just parties. “A lot of people looked at HUE as just a hair show,” she continued. “And I was like — no. This is a platform to discover brands, to build brands, and to have emerging and established brands come together for consumers. For me, it was so much bigger.”

That instinct to see bigger is what makes Ylorie’s tenure so significant. She didn’t just manage HUE — she curated it, the way a museum director shapes a collection: with intention, with narrative, with an eye on legacy.

The CVS Partnership: Relationships as Currency

Ask Ylorie how the CVS Pharmacy partnership came together, and she will answer you in one word: relationships.

What makes that answer remarkable is what it actually took. Ylorie brings over two decades of beauty industry experience to the table — a career that stretches from her early days consulting under her brand BrownGirlMarketing, founded in 2008, to her tenure as Vice President at EDEN BodyWorks, to advising and scaling more than 100 multicultural brands. That depth of network is what opened the CVS conversation. But it was the sisterhood — in the most real, room-shifting sense of the word — that sealed it.

“I told everybody I knew,” she recalled. “When you’re looking for a job, you tell everybody you know so they can tell somebody. So I told everybody I knew about what I was pitching.” One of those connections, a woman who straddled the worlds of both Black entrepreneurship and corporate retail — an ally, a friend — not only vouched for Ylorie in a pivotal CVS meeting, she then arranged for Ylorie to keynote a CVS summit the following month, placing her in front of over 200 brands. CVS, which had been considering the partnership, watched Ylorie command that room and subsequently came on board as presenting sponsor.

“People do speak your names in rooms you have yet to enter,” Ylorie said, her voice carrying the quiet certainty of someone who has lived that truth. And crucially, the second voice in that room came from both a Black woman and an ally. In Women’s History Month, that detail matters deeply. The sisterhood that built HUE isn’t hypothetical or performative; it’s the architecture of its success.

“People do speak your names in rooms you have yet to enter.”

Year 10: Building Beyond Boundaries

The 10th anniversary of HUE Affair is not a moment of nostalgia. It is a declaration of expansion. Ylorie has structured 2026 as a multi-city experience — anchored in Houston during Women’s History Month and New York City in late spring and summer — with programming that goes well beyond the marketplace floor.

The Houston kickoff, in partnership with Kaleidoscope Hair Products, takes place March 13–14 at CVS and Sermoni Edit. Jesseca “Judy” Dupart — the New Orleans-born founder who turned a small salon into a multimillion-dollar hair care empire, generating over $80 million in revenue — will join Karonda Cook, Head of Global Marketing at KISS and former buyer at Sally Beauty, for a fireside conversation moderated by Ylorie herself. The theme: Building Beyond Boundaries. The timing, during Women’s History Month, is anything but accidental.

“We needed to talk about the boundaries that we’re finding,” Ylorie said, gesturing to a cultural and political moment in which Black women are navigating economic uncertainty, corporate rollbacks, and a nation grappling with its own identity. “Whether those are financial, corporate, professional — there are performative things happening that we have very little control over. That conversation needed to be had.”

From Houston, the 10th anniversary tour moves to the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City for the HUE Affair NYC Marketplace on May 30, before culminating with the Leadership & Legacy Panel at the Brooklyn Public Library in August, featuring Design Essentials President Cornell McBride, Jr.

It is a full-year celebration — and a full-year curriculum.

The Evolution: From Aisle to Empire

One of the most powerful things Ylorie has done is expand HUE’s definition of its consumer. “I don’t just shop the hair aisle,” she pointed out. “When I’m at CVS and stores like Walmart — I’m also buying cosmetics, wellness products. I am a valid consumer to the tune of billions of dollars. My impact matters.”

This insight has reshaped the HUE floor. What began as a natural hair expo now encompasses beauty, lifestyle, wellness, and culture writ large. The 2025 edition, presented by CVS and powered by hair analysis technology from MYAVANA, drew nearly 1,000 attendees and featured over 60 brands, more than 50 of them Black-owned. The event is now attracting major retail buyers, corporate sponsors, and media — not because HUE changed who it is, but because it finally demanded to be seen as what it always was.

And Ylorie isn’t done. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, she has her sights set on educational programming that prepares indie beauty brands to navigate retail with confidence — covering everything from POs, inventory, and distribution, to influencer strategy, brand loyalty, and retail readiness. “How do we make sure brands are not walking into retail unready?” she asked, with the focused urgency of someone who has watched too many great products fail for lack of infrastructure. “Let’s spend some time breaking each of these elements down so that, as businesses are ready for them, they have the tools to build.”

“This isn’t hard work. Think of it as heart work — where I’m marrying my passions, my purpose, and living in them.”

The Woman Behind the Movement

Ylorie Taylor holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Norfolk State University and an MBA from DePaul University. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, a wife, a mother, and by her own description, a “chief connections officer” for some of the beauty industry’s most beloved brands. She has helped companies scale to six and seven figures. She has built coalitions between indie founders and major retailers. She has keynoted rooms full of executives and held space for the smallest emerging brand at the HUE table.

She is, in every sense, the embodiment of what Bacon Magazine was created to celebrate: a Black woman bringing her whole self — intellect, relationships, culture, and heart — to the work of building something that lasts.

“This isn’t hard work,” she told me near the end of our conversation, and I believed her completely. “Think of it as heart work — where I’m marrying my passions, my purpose, and living in them. And I have no regrets.”

Ten years in, HUE Affair is no longer just an event. It is evidence. Evidence that when Black women build with intention, the culture follows. That is when sisterhood is practiced not as an aesthetic but as a strategy; doors open. That is when commerce is rooted in community; it endures.

For tickets and information: www.hueaffair.com  |  Follow: @hueaffair

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