A History of Wigs

Nowadays, people usually wear wigs because they're losing their own hair. After chemotherapy as part of cancer treatment, for example, patients go bald and it takes a long time for hair to grow again. A wig can be the answer for women and men who feel frightened and ugly because of their disease and really don't want people to look at them in the streets.

But it's not only the sick who need the comfort that a wig can give. Famously, Elton John, the pop singer who became a friend of Princess Diana, wore a wig for many years until he had hair transplants – he wasn't ill or shy; he just didn't want to be bald. Female singers, like Tina Turner and Beyoncé, also wear wigs to surprise their fans at concerts by looking different from one month to the next.

Still, how many people wear wigs day to day? Not many! Baldness is no longer ugly for the young. In fact, many young men shave their heads because they prefer to be bald: they believe it makes them look more attractive. In the 1960s, thousands of young men across Europe shaved their heads to show their political ideas: they were called Skinheads and wore their hair very, very short. However, being bald has not always been attractive or fashionable.

In Ancient Egypt, the rich wore wigs to keep the sun off their heads and this fashion was also popular in Ancient Greece and Rome with women and men. But after the end of the Roman Empire, wigs were not seen in Europe again for a thousand years. It was Louis XIII of France, who went bald very early in life, who first started wearing wigs in the seventeenth century.

These wigs were long, heavy and uncomfortable and also cost a lot of money. But, at a time when many people had nits in their hair and had to shave their heads, wigs were a simple answer. They were made of hair from other people or from horses. Of course, nits could also make their homes in wigs, but they could be cleaned more easily because they could hang in smoke-filled rooms for days or be covered with acid.

But although smoke and medicines could kill nits, they could not fight the terrible disease which was travelling all over Europe in the seventeenth century – the plague. Samuel Pepys, who lived in London during those frightening years and kept a diary of his daily life, wrote that he was afraid to wear a wig he had just bought because he thought the hair might come from a sick or dead person's head and he could catch the disease too. Another time, he bought a wig but immediately took his money back because it had nits in it.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, wigs were not as long, heavy or expensive. Although most upper-class men still wore them, they were nearly always white or grey and much quieter than the long, heavy ones their great-grandfathers had worn. By the 1790s, only older men wore them. The young just put powder in their own hair to turn it white. The French Revolution changed everything. Wigs were seen as a rich man's fashion and most people did not want to look rich – it could be dangerous! In Britain, the government put a tax on hair powder in 1795 and wigs quickly became less popular. Soon, they were part of history.

You'll notice we have looked at wigs as part of men's clothing all these years. There were a few women who wore wigs too – Elizabeth I famously wore a red wig most of her life – but usually women used hair extensions to make their own hair look longer. It was only in the late twentieth century that wigs were seen as part of a woman's fashion.

It doesn't matter who wears them, wigs can still be very expensive. It's not easy to make a good wig, because all the hairs must travel in the same direction and so must be put on a wig one by one. Of course, it takes a very, very long time. And it's not always easy to find hair. Most of it comes from India and China where people sell their hair to make a bit of money, although wigs can also be synthetic or made of horse hair too!