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Posted on4 April 20234 April 2023AuthorH&MUA TeamLeave a comment

Depending on the period of your embroidery, you need to understand the hairstyles, jewelry, ruffs, and head coverings to get your lady right. I have found many resources that I have shared with my students, but this one came up yesterday and I just had to put it out there. This blogger has cut out portraits and put them into lineups for every 10 years between 1500 -1700. Amazing. And you really get the flow of the changes as well as it makes it so much easier to interpret the lines on the draftings for motifs during this period. There is much more on the site. If you want to look at lace collar styles for men and women, men's hats, and even a detailed diagram of facial hair on men for every 10 years between 1510-1690. Pick your decade and how to draw the face is right there for the picking! These are specific to France but the fashion did travel across the borders. And it makes it much easier to make sure that your figures on your piece are of the same time frame!

Frisuren, die grosse Mengen des Haars verlangen, waren im Laufe der 1880er Jahre weiterhin modisch, die Hauptmasse wurde in einem großen Knoten auf der Spitze oder zum Rücken des Kopfs angeordnet…

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This tutorial is for a Curly Gibson Tuck Hairstyle. I hope you’ll try it! Let’s begin Step one ~ Part the front section of your hair beginning from behind your ears to the top of your…

Massive post today, as usual for my fashion posts. Talking about men’s hair is funny, because when I just line up a bunch of portraits of guys from this period, it inevitably becomes a bit of a collection of hot period pin-ups. Who says women don’t objectify men, I guess. In my post on ladies’ hats, I said that hats are designed to suit hair. Now, the more I think about it, the more this only seems to apply to ladies, whose hairstyles and hat styles are in fairly frequent flux. For gentlemen, whose hairstyles and hat styles change more slowly over time, it seems that it may be the hair that must suit itself to the hat and not vice versa. Chicken or egg question. Now men’s hats ca. 1830 were of two basic varieties: the brimmed cap (for working-class men, young boys, and occasionally hunting/riding), and the top hat (for pretty much all well-dressed guys). Just as with women, there was other “shit men could put on their heads,” but these were the two basic hats, as in, “shit men could wear outdoors and not look weird.” ^^^Riding cap ca. 1830. ^^^Top hat, ca. 1830. Let’s ignore the cap for the moment, because we’re talking about fashion, and the cap sadly has little place in fashion ca. 1830. The top hat was what fashionable men had to contend with, and it was what they had to suit their hair to. Men had basically two strategies for getting their hair and their hats to work together. The first strategy I will call “vertical,” the second, “horizontal.” The vertical solution is to pile all your hair on top of your head, or else comb it in that direction for us sad straight-haired people (who were surely resigned in this period to being plain). This allowed for the hair to mostly sit beneath the hat. The horizontal solution was to pile/comb the hair to the sides of the head, leaving the top of the head pretty much smooth. This allowed for the hair to sit outside the hat (or rather, for the hat to kind of sit on the piles of hair). Both of these methods worked, since neither allowed the hat to crush the hair. And when a dandy takes so long to get his hair just so, nothing is worse than getting hat hair. ^^^The vertical solution. ^^^The horizontal solution. Just like their female counterparts, fashionable men were meticulous with their hair. They used many of the same products and methods of grooming that the ladies did, including pomade for smoothing and holding the hair in place and curling tongs, papers, and cloths for curling it. The hair could be parted pretty much anywhere, though in the earlier years of this period (ca. 1825-1827) they were still favoring the no-part, Napoleonic-type combed-forward or piled-on-top styles, while throughout the rest of the period (ca. 1827-1835) most men favored a side part. Side parts could even be extreme, as in, just over one ear. The hair was often brushed forward over the temples, but expansive, unblemished foreheads were thought to be a mark of masculine beauty, and so the hair was usually brushed up and away from the forehead to leave it bare. In describing Enjolras’ beauty in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo wrote appreciatively: “Much forehead in a face is like much sky in a horizon.” (He may have been a little biased.) Curls and waves were all the rage throughout the 1820s and 1830s, and these guys had them in abundance (or made sure they obtained them in abundance). Really, that’s all you need to know about men’s hair ca. 1830: curls, curls, CURLS. It’s all about the curls. ^^^Gotta say, this guy’s got nice hair, but he looks like a total douchebro. One day I’ll post the whole painting, and then maybe you’ll see what I mean (body language speaks volumes), but really, if this guy was standing at the other end of the bar, giving you this look, I’ll bet you wouldn’t give him your number, would you. ^^^Even Louis-Philippe is stylin’. ^^^Ohhh, I dunno, Charles X is pushing it a little. Those curls aren’t too curly…walking on the edge of uncool. Because let’s face it, anybody born with stick-straight, uncurlable hair was simply screwed and should have just sat out the 1820s-1830s, because they were never going to be hot and popular. However, they did try to make do with some sad, sore-loser comb-overs. Or they could try to coax it to flip up… …or forward… …or back… …or…whatever the hell this is: (Also, extra points for extra skeezy facial hair on that last one.) Sometimes they just gave up and cropped their hair: ^^^I assume this is Blanqui’s “prison chic” look, ca. 1835. Textured hair also makes for great 1820s-1830s hair. It’s all about the shaping: you can rock it up… …or down… …or Dumas, which is always the sexy choice: In a society that values huge piles of luscious curls, the bald or balding probably had an even rougher time of it than the straight-haired guys. Victor Hugo implicitly acknowledges how unfortunate male baldness is: being bald at twenty-five comes first in a litany of unlucky things in Laigle’s life. Unlike for ladies, there weren’t too many opportunities for guys to cover their hair constantly with caps and kerchiefs, so a few false curls tied on in front weren’t going to go very far for them. Of course, being that high foreheads were cool, a balding guy could always live in denial for a few years, but eventually fate would catch up to him. Now, he could age gracefully, as I’m sure many did… …but there were of course full and partial wigs available too for men’s use. I haven’t yet found an extant example of such a thing, but if I ever come across one, I’ll be sure to share. I can’t begin to imagine how they would have held these wigs securely on their heads, but there you have it. Unlike the ladies, of course, men also had facial hair to contend with. Facial hair was extremely popular ca. 1825-1835, even more so than in earlier decades. Of course typical sideburns, mutton chops, and mustaches were common, but the most striking and unusual style of facial hair of this period is what I can only call the “under-the-chin beard.” I have no idea if there is a more concise name for this odd thing, but I just call it like I see it. This beard sits, well, under the chin and extends along the jawline, all the way up to the hairline. Like so: Sometimes, for the extra ick factor, it can be paired with a mustache, thusly: This beard is extremely (extremely!) common in fashion plates ca. 1830. It is less common in portraits of the period, but by no means absent. Yes, guys did have these proto-Abe-Lincoln beards, and they rocked them, I must say. ^^^Work it, Champollion! He cracked the Rosetta Stone code with the sheer force of his bushy whiskers! As anyone who has had elaborate facial hair knows, it requires a good deal of maintenance: not only cleaning and grooming the hair itself, but shaping it and shaving the areas around it. Just as there were professional hairdressers for ladies, there were professional barbers for gentlemen. (And no, they didn’t all slit your throat and make you into meat pies.) I’m sure gentlemen who could afford it either visited “tonsorial parlors” or else had barbers come to their homes, but seeing as stubble is constantly requiring attention, I think lots of men dealt with their whiskers themselves, to the best of their ability. With straight razors, of course. What could go wrong? The result is some pretty fantastic facial hair. The artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s self-portraits from this period show a perfect progression from 1820s to 1830s facial hair: ^^^Young Winterhalter in the mid-1820s. Abundant curls, no facial hair. ^^^Not-quite-as-young Winterhalter ca. 1830. Abundant curls, side-whiskers, and the beginnings of a little mustache. ^^^Mid-1830s Winterhalter. Abundant curls (seeing a pattern here?), and full-blown under-the-chin beard with thick mustache. And among all these perfect little Beau Brummell types who pet and cherish and maintain their hair daily, there are a number of 1830s guys who plainly don’t give a shit. To those guys: cheers, it’s all good. Of course, in the Romantic period just as in today’s bedhead fashion, it’s hard to tell if guys just don’t give a shit about their hair, or if they are taking, like, an absurd amount of time and effort to make it look like they don’t give a shit. Hmmm… Among guys not giving a shit, I should also file the long-haired dudes. Long hair, i.e., hair down to your shoulders, no matter what you’ve been told by a million Les Mis fanarts (including my own past stuff), is not a thing in this period. Repeat: long hair on men is not a thing. It is the kind of hair worn by a few eccentrics, but it is by no means a thing. ^^^Audobon. An eccentric. ^^^Paganini. An eccentric. (It suffices to say “artist,” right?) ^^^Liszt. Artist. No matter what the Japanese want you to think, Enjolras, that stern, severe “soldier of democracy” and “priest of the ideal,” would not have had a gorgeous, flowing waist-length pony. Sorry, it’s just not true. It’s a little white lie, like the Tooth Fairy: harmless in the moment, but creates an atmosphere of distrust for the long run. Consider this my PSA for the fandom: stop the long-hair madness! Long hair looks strange and bohemian, but the award for absolute weirdest male hair I have come across in this period (aside from runner-up “prison chic” Blanqui) goes to famous caricaturist Honoré Daumier in a ca. 1829 portrait: …Um, okay. A straight-haired comb-over. A kinda under-the-chin-beard. But with, like, totally shameless panache. Like, “What, so my hair is straight? Fuck it, I will rock this straight hair! I will draw further attention to it with this over-the-top flip and uncomfortably long length! I will also make my under-the-chin beard as off-putting as possible! I will confuse you by growing out the goatee part of it but refuse to style it sensibly! I also will not pair it with a mustache, that is too mainstream!” I love his confidence, but then, I guess if you’re going to spend your life mooning the government without fear of repercussions and generally being the South Park of the mid-19th century, why worry about “fashionable” people’s dumb opinions? Instead, you should go draw a caricature of fashionable people’s dumb fashions. After shaming movie hair design last time, I feel like I ought to go out on a positive note: ^^^Yeah, I like. And it’s funny, too, because there’s a montage in which Pip is transforming from poor kid to fashionable gentleman, and he does suddenly go from straight-haired bedhead to 1830s dandy curls, which I really thought rang true to (1830s) life. Sadly, the ladies’ hair didn’t live up to the example set by the gentlemen. BBC Great Expectations (2011). ^^^His hair’s okay, but it’s really his overall look that’s so perfect. His features are really sensual, and he has that strange 1830s dandy je-ne-sais-quoi. To me, this is Courfeyrac, right here. Une vieille maîtresse (2007). ^^^Slightly later period, but still pretty admirable hair design. The Young Victoria (2009). ^^^For those of you who have spent the last two years bitching about this wig, I have a message for you, straight from the 1830s: Stop. Just stop. You’re wrong, and you’re making a fool of yourself. It’s glorious. It’s full of curls. It’s side-parted. It doesn’t have a ponytail. It’s BLOND. It’s everything that historically-accurate Enjolras hair ought to be but never has been in a movie version before. It’s probably the best thing in this movie, and that’s saying a lot. The first time I saw a photo of Tveit in this wig, that’s the moment I knew they were serious about this adaptation. Musical!Enjolras has come a long way from the 1980s fro with rat-tail look: (It’s okay, I still love the hell out of your Enjolras, Anthony Warlow!) Marius’ hair design in the 2012 Les Mis movie is also good–suitably goofy, but still totally period: ^^^Horizontal and vertical hair strategies, you see? I approve. Now if you boys could just convince Fantine and Cosette to put their hair up…

Charles I might have had a keen eye for art, but his queen’s eye was sharper and far more sophisticated. With the couple’s extraordinary art collection currently on display at the RA, the consort&r…

From henna to hair dye, the full history of hair color is a fascinating one. Two colorists explain the evolution of hair color, inside.

A better version of this painting may be found here: www.flickr.com/photos/28433765@N07/6021643383/in/photostream

Tatton Park