1770's - 1780's Hair Fashion: bygonefashion

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1770's - 1780's Hair Fashion

Nov 08, 2006 14:03

1770's - 1780's Hair Fashion

"How long had her hair been dressed? Three weeks. 'Dont that lay you under the necessity of dressing your hair every evening?' 'Oh Lord, Sir, a head properly made up, with pins, paste & pomatum, will keep a month very well.'"

~Arthur Murphy, The Old Maid (1756)

Hairstyles and headgear

The 1770's were notable for extreme hairstyles and wigs which were built up very high, and often incorporated decorative objects (sometimes symbolic, as in the case of the famous engraving depicting a lady wearing a large ship in her hair with masts and sails - called the "Coëffure à l'Indépendance ou la Triomphe de la liberté" - to celebrate naval victory in the American war of independence). These coiffures were parodied in several famous satirical caricatures of the period.

By the 1780s, elaborate hats replaced the former "big hair". Mob caps and other "country" styles were worn indoors. Flat, broad-brimmed and low-crowned straw "shepherdess" hats tied on with ribbons were worn with the new rustic styles.

Hair was powdered into the early 1780s, but the new country fashion required natural colored hair, often dressed simply in a mass of curls.

The Marlborough Family. Detail. 1777-78.

Women often slept sitting up to keep the style in place and scratched their itching scalps using the misnamed long handled backscratchers of today. These were carved from ivory or made of silver or combinations of Mother of Pearl. This vanity has often been recorded in contemporary cartoons.

Hair was initially built up over horsehair and wool padded frames beginning with the natural hair. Then vast amounts of false hair was added, sometimes building the hair up to reach 30 inches. This was about half the height of the average female of the day. Hair was worn so high that the chin was halfway between the top of the head and the feet. Frequently ladies would have difficulty getting through doors and riding in carriages.

Women had to be careful in ballrooms not to get their hairstyle caught in the candlelit chandeliers. More than one head of hair went up in flames and the roof of St. Paul's Cathedral in London had to be raised four feet in 1776 so that the gentry could enter without mishap to their coiffures.

These flamboyant hairstyles were often topped by scenes depicting farmyards or ships or floral and jewel ornamentation. Frequently they were finished off with lavish wide brimmed hats later known as Gainsborough hats.