Before Coree Moreno was channeling the Greek goddess Athena on the red carpet to create Zendaya’s hairstyles for The Odyssey press tour, he was styling his younger sister’s hair every morning before school at his home in Prince George’s County. That started when he was 11.
His mom, he says, made it his weekly chore, “when she realized that I was actually doing my sister’s hair really, really well.” By the time he was in middle school, his parents had cleared out a room of their house to make an at-home salon for him to practice.
Now, besides Zendaya, Moreno’s clientele includes Cynthia Erivo, Lil Nas X, and Chase Infiniti. But it was his work with Zendaya this summer that generated a wealth of social media buzz. Moreno now has over 50,000 followers on Instagram, and posts from fashion outlets showcasing Zendaya’s Odyssey press run looks have garnered millions of likes.
Moreno, now 32, always dreamed of being a stylist to the stars—as a kid he dressed as a celebrity stylist for his school’s career day. By the time he was in high school, his teachers and guidance counselors were asking him to do their hair. He says Prince George’s County is often “slept on” even though it’s an affluent area, and getting his start there allowed him to understand fashion at an early age.
“I found a love for beauty very early on, just being able to use a natural skill to connect with people, and it was just really special being able to facilitate that in my community,” Moreno says.
After graduating from Graham Webb Academy—a now-closed beauty school in Rosslyn—Moreno refined his craft at local salons including Taylor & York in Shaw and Parlour Salon in the U Street Corridor. Moreno says most of his clients then were people of color working in government, and he gained experience working on all types of hair.
In 2015, Moreno says he took a “leap of faith” and moved to California, where he worked with mostly what he describes as “C-list” celebrities. After a brief stint back in DC, he decided to cold-message Vernon François, a stylist known for working with high-profile Black clients, in the hope of getting more exposure.
“DC was great, but I felt like what I had to show needed a bigger platform,” Moreno says.
It paid off. François responded, asking when he was free. Moreno “scraped my little money together” and moved to New York. He says his goal was to “evangelize” healthy hair.
“That’s been my consistent goal throughout my whole career,” he says. “It’s just to really spread the knowledge and awaken that understanding within A-list, elite people that they don’t have to settle for their hair being problematic.”
He worked under François as his assistant, helping on campaigns and shoots for François’s A-list clients, including Lupita Nyong’o and Serena Williams. This allowed Moreno to establish himself in the New York fashion scene and then work his way into Hollywood: “People were blowing my phone up,” he says.
Despite working with high-profile clients such as Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, and Queen Latifah during last year’s award season, he said working on The Odyssey press tour with Zendaya gave him a whole new level of exposure. It’s not hard to see why. Not only did The Odyssey gross $264.1 million on opening weekend—the highest for any live action film this year—but Zendaya’s press tour looks have generated their own cult following. Her carefully curated outfits and hairstyles have made her look the part of the ancient Greek goddess she plays in the film.
Moreno says Zendaya’s team called and asked him to send over ideas for the tour, and they loved his vision for what a modern Greek goddess might look like. One of the most talked-about looks on the tour was for the New York premiere of the film, where Zendaya wore a long, undone braid to complement a feathered dress from Fecal Matter that gave her the illusion of angel wings. Moreno says he saw that particular look as a way to “romanticize” the idea of undone, nonperfect hair.
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“Most of the hairstyles were like traditional Grecian references, and that was one of the pivotal moments that kind of brought the whole look together and made it feel like modern day,” he says.
Even after reaching Hollywood-level acclaim, Moreno says his DMV roots remain important to him. DC, he says, can seem like a pretty “stale” city mainly focused on corporate and government work, but for him it’s the artists and creatives that give the city its vibrant culture. That, and the area’s diversity—as a kid, he had friends from the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Russia.
“Being in a city and growing up with all of these embassies and people from all over the world and different types of cuisine, my mind was opened up very early on to what culture was,” Moreno says.
