Wig-Hats Fashionable But Scarcely New

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 2

Wig-Hats Fashionable But Scarcely New

Women have been quick to buy—but slower to wear—the stocks of wig-hais in city stores, but they need not fed selfconscious for wigs have been socially-acceptable since earliest recorded history. Indeed, they were once regarded as a necessary part of men’s and women’s dress.

AH that is new about the wig-hat is the material—dyne, a twentieth-century synthetic fibre. Those who wear them are in distinguished company..

Alexander the Great, for political expediency, wore a wig on occasions. Mary Queen ol Scots wore one to her execution. When the executioner held up her head after the fatal blow, the wig fell off to reveal only a few wisps of grey hair on her head.

Greeks and Egyptians regard wigs as an essential part of their dress. Roman demimondes were required by law to wear yellow wigs or else to dye their hair yellow, but this did not prevent yellow wigs from becoming fashionable in Rome. Ancient Egyptians shaved their heads and wore wigs, the only exceptions being priests and slaves. Their wigs were made of black or dark brown wool and were decorated with as much jewellery as could be afforded. Wigs were part of the burial equipment of the dead. The women of ancient Greece did not need to bother with new styles every season. They got their fashion fun from wigs. Their wig-styles are being copied by hairdressers today. To the Romans, wigs were so important that Roman portrait busts had removable stone wigs to allow for

changes of fashion—a welcome change from modern photography, which remorselessly dates the youngestlooking grand-parents. ‘ Role of French Queen Elizabeth I owned at least 80 wigs and her court ladies and many of her gentlemen had wigs the same colour. It was left to the French, however, to bring wigs into universal usage. Louis XHI went bald at 23 and introduced the peri-wig. Louis XIV had long, fair hair which caused his courtiers to wear yellow wigs as a compliment As an adult he adopted a peri-wig, and as an old man wore an enormous

wig, thickly-powdered. His court followed and soon the practice spread across Europe. Even young boys wore them. From the middle of the seventeenth century, items dealing with wigs were in the inventory of what the well-dressed youth took with him to boardingschool.

In England wigs became the rage after the Restoration, when people were tired and

bored with years of piety and sobriety. So great was the demand tor hair that children were not allowed out atone in case their hair was stolen. Wig-thefts were common. Poor people invested in sixpenny lottery tickets in the hope of winning one. Pepys in 1663 recorded that the fear that plague victims were shorn of their hair before burial caused a pan ic that wigs bought at that time might be infectious. Natural hair could not keep pace with the demand. Substitute materials were horse-hair, cotton-wool, goat hair, thread, silk, and mohair. Wigs for clergymen were more often than not made of fea<thers. Women did not wear removable wigs very much ait this time. Eighteenth-century hair fashions were miniature Empire State buildings which took hours to build. The subject’s own hair, well pomaded with grease to make the powder stick, was the base. Bushels of wool, bran, horsehair, and several cushions on a wire foundation were used to reach the required height of three feet or more. Various ornaments, animal, vegetable and mineral, were balanced on top. Once created, the hair-style was left as long as possible, usually three weeks, before being rebuilt. To be fashionable a woman was prepared to put up with playing hostess to all kinds of vermin from mice to lice. She used a scratching stick, often adorned with gold and jewels, when the itch became too much.

K was Pitt's tax on hair powder in 1795 that brought wigs into disfavour among fashionable males. Years of wasting flour, scarce and dear for the poor, came to an end as the fashionable refused to pay an annual tax of one guinea. Those who did were jeered at as “guinea-pigs.”

In France, the Revolution which looked upon wig-wear-ers as aristocrats and enemies, brought the fashion to an end. However, after the reign of terror, women Who had cropped their hair for safety took to wearing coloured wigs till it grew again. Since then wigs have been worn intermittently. Hairpieces though were never completely discarded. and have continued in use during this century.