A wig, from the French "(per)ruque", is a head of hair made from horse-hair, human hair, wool, feathers, buffalo hair, or synthetic, worn on the head for fashion or various other aesthetic and stylistic reasons, including cultural and religious observance. The word wig is short for periwig and first appeared in the English language around 1675.
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A wig, from the French "(per)ruque", is a head of hair made from horse-hair, human hair, wool, feathers, buffalo hair, or synthetic, worn on the head for fashion or various other aesthetic and stylistic reasons, including cultural and religious observance. The word wig is short for periwig and first appeared in the English language around 1675.
Some people wear wigs to disguise the fact that they are bald; a wig may be seen as a less intrusive and less expensive alternative to therapies for restoring hair. Actors, on the other hand often wear costume wigs in order to better portray the character they are playing.
History
The ancient Egyptians wore them to shield their shaved, hairless heads from the sun. Other ancient cultures, including the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans, also used wigs. Wigs are principally a Western form of dress—in the Far East they have rarely been used except in the traditional theatre of China and Japan. Some East Asian entertainers (Japanese Geisha, Korean Kisaeng) wore wigs (Katsura and gache respectively) as part of their traditional costumes. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the use of wigs fell into abeyance in the West for a thousand years until revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one's personal appearance. They also served a practical purpose: the unhygienic conditions of the time meant that hair attracted head lice, a problem that could be much reduced if natural hair were shaved and replaced with a more easily de-loused artificial hairpiece. Fur hoods were also used in a similar preventative fashion.
Royal patronage was crucial to the revival of the wig. Queen Elizabeth I of England famously wore a red wig, tightly and elaborately curled in a "Roman" style while King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643) and King Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) pioneered wig-wearing among men from the 1620s onwards. Perukes or periwigs for men were introduced into the English-speaking world with other French styles when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, following a lengthy exile in France. These wigs were shoulder-length or longer, imitating the long hair that had become fashionable among men since the 1620s. Their use soon became popular in the English court. The London diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the day in 1665 that a barber had shaved his head and that he tried on his new periwig for the first time, but in a year of plague he was uneasy about wearing it:
