Wednesday Wig Out: A Brief History of the Original Metal Heads

In light of reading of how some vintage loving gals have found themselves feeling offended by people asking them if their hair is really a wig, I just had to share this vintage item spotted at Past Perfect Vintage: what we have here in the first image below is a 1920s deco flapper wig made out of gold bullion!!! How fascinating! Price-wise, it's literally worth it's weight in gold. Just think, in the 20s, it was a fashion statement to have wig-hair!

A brief amount of research led me to find that, in fact, women of the 1920s and 30s could buy wigs that had perfect marcel waves and pin curls already in place (first image, from artdecoblog, shows an ad for wigs; second image, from Shorpy, shows front window of the famous Marcel of Paris salon in Washington. Not only do the mannequins appear to be wearing wigs, but the front shop window advertises imported hair).

Finding out about the wigs (which were assuredly not just for women with issues to do with balding or hair loss) made me feel a bit less pressure over my inability to perfect my vintage hairdo...It gave me hope that maybe a few vintage women were like me, in terms of finding it tricky to get the perfect hair I see in vintage images and certainly finding it somewhat unfeasible to devote the time needed to attempt to have such a coiffure as an everyday hairdo. But, maybe I'm just one of those lazy, unkempt types and I should just invest in one of these babies if I ever want to have perfect hair ;) Anyway, back to the gold wig itself: there is something really fun and creative about the idea of gold hair but this MUST be a heavy and hot piece to wear. If I were going to do such a fantastical metallic hairstyle, I'd opt for a treatment done on my own hair, like the woman in the third image, Mme Bonnardel, who had her hair lacquered silver white and styled by Antoine (image courtesy of Conde Naste). For now, I stick with my natural hairdo.