New 7.1 hairstyle looks nothing like the winning hairstyle from the 2023 contest

I'm not sure where else to write about this but I'm very disappointed in how the new hairstyle for 7.1 patch looks as seen on the patch notes released today.

The hairstyle in question looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/MOmodFr.jpeg

Assuming that this is supposed to be the "Natural Curls" hairstyle, which is part of the winning entries for the 2023 hairstyle contest, this is what it's supposed to look like:

https://i.imgur.com/ZjZ2z0I.jpeg

I'm very disappointed if this is what we're about to get in this game.
The hair looks nothing like how the artist had originally visualised — it looks more wavy than curly. I cannot begin to articulate how bad it is that we've wanted better natural/textured hair in this game only for the devs to butcher the artist's vision and "play it safe".

Please do better. We don't have enough hairstyles like this as it is, with the only two options available for black people specifically are a stereotypical afro and a poor attempt of locs. I'm hoping more people speak out about this as I know folks have been looking forward to the small number of entries for textured/natural hair that were selected as winning entries for the contest.

hairs (in general) in the game are really stiff and most of haircuts looks bad/low def (even after the upgrade). trying to have beautiful curls/affro in the game is almost impossible it seems.

It looks awful like play dough, I do not like the style they chose but I know a lot who do and they have made a balls of it. I remember when we used to get 2 or 3 in a patch now we are lucky if we get one at all.

The styles they had to choose from and it has taken so long to do just makes me more annoyed with the game as of late. I know we need more styles like this and also I would like a longer one as all the ones we have had have been so short.

They should have made a better job of this one and also add a long or mid length one. I feel for players who wanted this style and no clue who they have doing them because its awful. I feel the chaos raid may have a really good hairstyle in it as to get players to do it. I think they do not listen to feedback on anything now.

Does the game handle curly hair like that well though? The pompadour and Affro are like 1 flat cylinder/ball with a texture not actually curls.

Edit: Guess i was correct in my assessment as seen in the dev response.

Hmm it does say inspired by

It really feels like the words "inspired by" are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I know a lot of people were really excited to see this hairstyle get picked as a winner, myself included, but this execution is just... really sloppy. It comes off as more like... bedraggled wet cat than cute bouncy curls. There's no lift or lightness to it like the design is clearly showing and it's only recognizable as the same hairstyle in basic shape and the implication of curls (that are no longer curly but just wavy).

Come on, dev team. I know y'all can do better than this.

it's egregiously bad. i know they're saying "inspired by" but it's giving "didn't even try". come on now. :/

Replying to this thread just to voice my agreement. Maybe it’s better in game but this preview is not promising. There’s already a ton of short hairstyles but none of them have the kind of texture the original submission displayed. Really hope the devs take this feedback to heart and either fix this or provide better curly hairstyles in the future.

It's clear that it's not the same hairstyle sadly.

Also replying here just to voice my support. I had to triple-check through the other winning hairstyles to make sure it was based on this one because I thought 'surely they wouldn't mess it up this bad', and yet...