How the Spice Girls helped me embrace my hair and myself

The first time I watched "Wannabe" — the video of the 1996 debut single of British pop group the Spice Girls — it was back in the era of newspapers; I was chatting with my Entertainment Desk colleagues when the video aired on MTV.

We watched agog as the rambunctious quintet of Victoria Adams (now Beckham), Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell (now Horner), Melanie Chisholm and Melanie Brown pranced into an uppity establishment, singing "friendship never ends" and introducing "zig-a-zig-ah" to the English vocabulary.

Even their iconic nicknames were intriguing. Posh, Baby, Ginger, Sporty and Scary Spice — the last of whom had grabbed my attention for … her hair and sass. 

"If you'd stop straightening your hair and let it grow out, you'd look just like her!" a colleague exclaimed, as our heads bopped in unison to their breakout hit, which now has more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

Hair? Huh?

You see, I'd been mercilessly teased for my curly hair while growing up in 1970s and 1980s Malaysia. Even among my schoolmates of Malay, Chinese and even my own Indian heritage, my hair literally stood out, attracting unsavory remarks even from random strangers. 

Perhaps as a coping mechanism, I became headstrong but was often chided for back talk and not being demure and soft-spoken enough. 

Studying abroad helped broaden my perceptions of self-assurance and beauty. Yet, I returned to being a "minority" at home and resigned myself to trying to blend in — which included years of straightening my hair and biting my tongue. 

And then this band, which turns 30 this year, burst into my 20-something world, spreading their gospel of celebrating one's individuality and speaking one's mind: "girl power," as they would call it. And I was converted. 

To be clear, the group does not get sole credit in the evolution of my selfhood. But their blend of spreading an earnest message while not taking themselves too seriously resonated with me. 

Feminists in Wonderbras?

Often writing them off as a manufactured pop band, critics sniffed not just at their singing but also at their brand of feminism.

Geri Halliwell-Horner, a.k.a Ginger Spice — who even helped make the Union Jack fashionable — had even developed a "power oath" in 1997: "I, being of sound mind and new Wonderbra, do solemnly promise to cheer and dance and zig-a-zig-ah. Ariba! Girl Power!"

Arguably not lines that would make oratory history. Yet the Spice Girls and their songs embodied self-empowerment, individuality and female friendship. And if we peeled back the fizzy pop and friskiness, isn't this generally what most women's rights proponents fight for? For women to be free to do what they want, "what they really, really want"? 

Speaking to the BBC in 2017, Halliwell-Horner said, "But actually, Girl Power embodies much more than a gender. It's about everybody. Everybody deserves the same treatment, whatever race you are, gender you are, age you are. It was just saying that in a very digestible way."

Adele, Sam Smith and the Spices they loved

Several Millennial and Gen Z stars of today credit the Spice Girls for inspiring them too. British superstar Adele, who is an avowed fan especially of Ginger Spice, was among thousands who attended the band's 2019 reunion gig in London. "It's no secret how much I love them, how much they inspired me to run for my life and never look back. I finally got to meet Ginger, I got drunk with the girls and quite frankly I can't believe how far I've come," the 16-time Grammy winner later gushed on Instagram.

A clip of Adele singing "Wannabe" with James Corden in "Carpool Karaoke" went viral in 2016.  

Fellow Brit and non-binary singer Sam Smith once sported a T-shirt on Instagram with the hashtag "I wanna be a Spice Girl" that prompted the group to respond, "You're in."

The Spice Girls have long had a loyal following among the LGBTQ community too. Among others, they changed the lyrics of their 1996 hit "2 become 1" to be more inclusive. To celebrate Pride Day in 2021, the band members donned T-shirts that read "proud and wannabe your lover" in rainbow-colored font. It was designed by Victoria Beckham a.k.a Posh, who is now a fashion designer.  

In 2018, US actor and Oscar winner Emma Stone of "La La Land" fame told "The Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon that her obsession with the Spice Girls had a hand in inspiring her current stage name. "Growing up, I was super blonde. My real name is Emily, but I wanted to be called Emma because of Baby Spice. And guess what? Now I am."

And Victoria Beckham told the "Breaking Beauty" podcast in 2021 that singer Beyonce had once told her, 'It was the Spice Girls that inspired me and made me want to do what I do.'"

And let's not forget the wave of girl bands that formed not just in the UK but across the globe, from Thailand to Ethiopia to Germany, who cited the Spice Girls as sources of inspiration.

South Korea's Blackpink, currently the world's biggest K-pop girl group, told James Corden on last year's "Carpool Karaoke" that they really liked how the Spice Girls have their own individual characters "and that was something we were aiming for, and it was such an iconic girl group that we grew up listening to."

From topping charts to gracing stamps

Formed in 1994, the Spice Girls became the biggest girl group of all time, selling more than 100 million records worldwide and achieving nine Number 1 hits in the UK. After their debut single "Wannabe" in 1996, the group released three hit albums and the film "Spice World" in 1997. The group, minus Victoria Beckham, last reunited in 2019 for a UK tour. 

And now they've become the first female pop group to have an entire Royal Mail stamp issue dedicated to them. It also marks the sixth time a music group has featured in a dedicated stamp issue, following the Beatles in 2007, Pink Floyd in 2016, Queen in 2020, the Rolling Stones in 2022, and Iron Maiden in 2023.

 

"We are so excited to be celebrated by Royal Mail alongside some of the most iconic and influential music legends," the group said in a statement. "When we formed the Spice Girls we couldn't have dreamt that 30 years later we would be the first female group to be dedicated an entire stamp collection, that's Girl Power!"

And now, I really, really, really want to get those stamps! 

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier