History of Hair Extensions

As far back as Egyptian times both women and men have worn wigs or hair pieces according to the diktats of fashion. Wigs, hair switches or hair pieces have come in and out of fashion in just about every century. In Georgian times high false wigs were a norm and men also wore bag wigs.

Fake hair for women became frowned upon after 1800 and women wore hair more naturally. The addition of false hair returned again with the elaborate Apollo knots of the Romantic era. Later human hair additions were used so extensively in the mid Victorian era of elaborate hairstyling that 51,816kgs of (false) human hair were sold in France in 1871 and 102,900kgs in 1873.

In the early C20th Edwardian women wore false hair additions to create the Pompadour hairstyle that looked like a woman was wearing a teapot on her head. By the 1920s less hair, rather than more was the vogue. In the 1940s long natural hair in the mode of Veronica Lake or Lauren Bacall was one of the few remaining non rationed luxuries a woman could indulge in

By the 1950s women enjoyed short, but then very sharp bubble cut perms or new youthful ponytails. The latter graduated into topknot buns and sleek French pleat twists by the turn of the decade. As the 1960s wore on, extravagant human hair pieces allowed wearers to have their hair dressed in coils, or as we think of such styles today, dressed as an updo. Wigs both blatantly fake and real were commonly worn in the 60s and early 70s. By the 1980s hairpieces and wigs were more or less abandoned by the majority, but used extensively by famous singers like Tina Turner, Diana Ross and other celebrities.

credit: Fashion - Era