Wigs

11 Annotations

First Reading

Kent  •  Link

from www.costumes.org quotation from site costume specialist Tara Marginis, PhD: "In 1624 Loius XIII went prematurely bald. He disguised this with a wig and started a fashion which became almost universal for European upper and middle class men by the beginning of the 18th Century during his similarly folliclely challenged son's reign. Wigs were made of horsehair, yak hair or human hair, the latter being the most expensive. Wigs were very expensive. A man could outfit himself with a hat, coat, breeches, shirt, hose and shoes for about what a wig would cost him. A wig also required constant care from a hairdresser for cleaning, curling and powdering." Why would a man want to wear a wig? answer from Dr Tara Marginis: 1.) to hide baldness, 2.)could sent your wig out to be done rather than personally spending time at the hairdresser, 3.) to get rid of lice you could shave your head and boil your wig, 4.) it's comfortable sleeping in short hair, 5.) ability to change styles by changing your wig, 6.) class considerations: wigs were expensive and looked it (for illustrations, go to www.costume.org, under "history," then "18th C.," then "accesories," then "wigs," then "18th C. Men's Wigs")

Kent  •  Link

comments about Pepys' use of wigs from Vol.X (companion) of Latham and Matthew's edition (1983) to the Diary: "Pepys wore his hair long and curled in the early years of the diary--difficult though he found it to keep clean--but in 1663 adopted the new fashion of the periwig....By 1663 Charles II's hair was already turning grey and when he and the Duke of York began wearing wigs, Pepys had two made for himself and wore them from Nov.1663....His successive wigs illustrate the movement of fashion towards artificiality. That worn in the early portrait by Hayls (1666) resembles a full head of hair. In the Kneller portrait of 1686 the wig is a quite different object--large, portentous, and bearing little relation to the natural hair." (correction: spelling of name of site specialist at costume.org is: Tara Maginnis, PhD)

TerryF  •  Link

About Wigs & relata, with 27 illustrations

AT THE SIGN OF THE BARBER'S POLE
STUDIES IN HIRSUTE HISTORY

BY WILLIAM ANDREWS, AUTHOR OF "BYGONE ENGLAND", ETC.

COTTINGHAM, YORKSHIRE, J. R. TUTIN,1904
http://homepages.ius.edu/kaleksan…

Bradford  •  Link

Aileen Ribero’s "sumptuous" book, "Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England" (Yale, 387pp.), "covers fashion from 1603-1714, the reign of six monarchs and the Cromwellian interregnum. It is indefatigably embellished with minute detail.”

“Men had to learn ‘wig behaviour’—-you tossed the wig aside when bowing, or it all fell over your face. Pepys set one wig alight while sealing a letter, and worried feverishly about the safety of another, bought during the plague.”

From Ann Pasternak Slater's review in the 29 April 2006 "Guardian Review":

http://books.guardian.co.uk/revie…

cum salis grano  •  Link

Strangely peri- [greek for surrounding] and wig [3 meanings,1 that be a bunn, 3. Shortened form of PERIWIG, as winkle of periwinkle.]
This needs complete dissection by an expert. This be here to tickle thy skull.
OED: Forms: . 15 periwigg, 15-16 perewig, 15-16 perriwigg, 15-16 perriwigge, 15-16 perrywig, 15-16 perywygge, 15-17 periweg, 15-17 periwyg, 15-17 perrewig, 15-17 perywig, 15-18 perriwig, 15- periwig, 16 perewige, 16 perewigg, 16 periwigge, 16 perrywigge, 16 perwig, 16 perwigge; Sc. pre-17 peirieweig, pre-17 peiriweig, pre-17 peirywig, pre-17 pereweig, pre-17 periweige, pre-17 periwige, pre-17 pirewig, pre-17 piriewig, pre-17 pirivige, pre-17 piriweeg, pre-17 piriweig, pre-17 piriwig, pre-17 pirriwig, pre-17 pirwig, pre-17 17- periwig. [< Middle French perrucque, perruque PERUKE n., with alteration of the form and development of a medial vowel, perh. by folk-etymological association with PERIWINKLE n.1 (see forms s.v.). A parallel borrowing of the same French word is shown by PERUKE n. Cf. WIG n.3

1. a. Any highly stylized wig of a kind formerly worn by men and women, and (esp. in Britain and parts of the British Commonwealth) retained by judges and barristers as part of their professional dress. More generally: a wig of any kind.
Now chiefly hist. (the legal type is generally referred to simply as a wig).
1578 J. LYLY Euphues f. 44, Take from them, their periwiggs, their payntings, [etc.].., and thou shalt soone perceiue that a woman is the least parte of hir selfe.
1614 W. RALEIGH Hist. World V. iii. §5 He was..glad to vse Perwigs of haire, and false beards of diuers colours.
1656 A. WOOD Life 4 Sept. (1891) I. 209, I bought me a perewige of my barber, 6s.
1667 S. PEPYS Diary 29 Mar. (1974) VIII. 136 To a periwig-maker's..and there bought two periwigs, mighty fine.

b. fig. A covering; something used for concealment or to cover up a defect. Obs.
1589 Pappe with Hatchet sig. D, Martins conscience hath a periwig; therefore to good men he is more sower than wig.

2. A kind of marine animal (not identified). Obs.
1634 W. WOOD New Englands Prospect I. ix. 36 The luscious Lobster with the Crabfish raw, The Brinish Oister, Muscle, Periwigge.

1634 W. WOOD New Englands Prospect I. ix. 39 The Perewig is a kind of fish that lyeth in the oaze like a head of haire, which being touched conveyes itself leaving nothing to bee seene but a small round hole.
1663 Newes 4 Feb., George Grey, a Barber and Perrywigge-maker [notifies] that any one having long flaxen hayr to sell may repayr to him. 1
as a verb
Forms: 16 perriwig, 16 perwig, 16- periwig. [< PERIWIG n.]
1. trans. To dress, cover, or conceal with or as with a periwig. Originally and chiefly fig. Now usu. in pass.
1605
----
In quot. 1662 apparently: a lovelock.
In quot. 1846 identified as a smaller wig than a periwig and belonging to the reign of Charles II, but peruke is in fact found much earlier than this, and other authors identify it in sense with periwig.
1662 S. PEPYS Diary 24 Mar. (1970) III. 51 By and by comes la Belle Perce to see my wife and to bring her a pair of peruques of hair.

Second Reading

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"... Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters ..."

from Hamlet's advice to the players, Act 3, scene ii - an absolutely wonderful speech!
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet…

One's pate is the top of one's head.

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Wigs -- this article covers everything from their history (started with Louis XIII, the Sun King's father) to how to clean them and in what colors they were available (including pink and blue).

They were ignored by Louis XIV until the royal head started to lose its voluptuness, at which time he embraced wigs with enthusiasm, and employed 40 wigmakers -- it took hair from 10 preferably country women to make one of his extravaganzas.

Charles II resisted until he started to go grey in 1663, and then he followed suit.

https://medium.com/@nicolvalentin…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

FROM: "Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London"
By Liza Picard
Last updated 2011-02-17
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/bri…

"Appearance:
"Diary extract"

"27 March, 1667: 'I did go to the Swan; and there sent for Jervas my old periwig-maker and he did bring me a periwig; but it was full of nits, so as I was troubled to see it (it being his old fault) and did send him to make it clean.'

"Background information:

"Nits, lice, body odours - not glamorous, and not visible in the portraits of the time. Charles II, the 'masquerading monarch', took to wigs when he saw his first grey hairs, and most men followed him.

"He also pioneered the predecessor of the 3-piece suit - knee breeches, waistcoat and long jacket.
Women were still encased in stiff corsets, and encumbered with long skirts.
Men wore linen drawers, women did not wear knickers.

"Patches - artificial beauty spots - were worn by both sexes.
Little bits of mouse skin could replace unfashionable eyebrows.
Cosmetics were alarming. Ceruse, containing lead, produced the desirable mat white complexion, even on a smallpox-pitted skin, but it smelt, and cracked, and poisoned the wearer."

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The Puritan-Royalist divide in the New World was personified by the use -- or non-use -- of periwigs, in the first generation.
Apparently looks and fashion were more important to those who could afford them after that:
https://newenglandhistoricalsocie…

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