Ties braids of hair Romeo's cut (9)

'ties braids' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are plural nouns, I cannot understand how one could define the other.

'hair romeo's cut' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'hair' could be 'locks' (locks can mean hair) and 'locks' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'dead' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'of' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?