Why did people wear powdered wigs? - Stephanie Honchell Smith
In 1624, 23-year-old King Louis the XIII
of France was in crisis.
He was balding.
What would people say, at a time
when a monarch's hair
had come to symbolize
his power and nobility?
Louis was not interested in finding out.
Instead, he made a decision that kicked
off a 150-year fashion craze:
he wore a particularly full wig.
Long before Louis people adopted wigs
for various reasons—
including hygiene, theater,
and anti-aging endeavors.
Wigs date at least as far back
as ancient Egypt,
where well-regarded hairdressers crafted
them into intricate styles.
And under certain ancient Roman dynasties,
women's wigs became particularly ornate,
one poet mocking their numerous tiers.
During the Middle Ages, the Catholic
Church discouraged wig-wearing,
emphasizing instead humility
and austerity.
So, those who did wig
in medieval western Europe
generally wore more
natural-looking styles.
But as rules relaxed in the 1500s,
wigs became more acceptable accessories.
Queen Elizabeth I of England
owned over 80 red wigs,
which she used to augment her hair
and conceal it as it thinned and grayed.
One of these wigs even adorned
her funeral effigy.
Yet it wasn't until Louis XIII unveiled
his magnificent mane
a couple of decades later that
big wigs truly began booming.
Members of Louis' court,
perhaps eager to gain favor,
bewigged themselves and aristocrats
elsewhere soon followed suit.
The fast-growing popularity of wigs
might have been accentuated
by concerns over hair loss
caused by mercury,
which doctors then prescribed to treat
syphilis and other ailments.
But people also heralded wigs
as convenient,
since they eliminated the need for daily
hair cleaning and styling.
In the mid-1600s, the trend amplified
under Louis XIII's son, Louis XIV.
At the time, Europe took its couture cues
from Madrid.
But Louis XIV's government changed that
by investing heavily
in France's luxury industry.
They created specialized guilds,
formalized seasonal releases,
enforced a dress code at court,
and banned imports that could have been
made in France or its colonies.
Louis XIV once even ordered his son—
yet another Louis—
to burn his coat because it was made
of foreign cloth.
Buoyed by its growing colonial empire,
France amassed wealth and influence,
and Parisian-style big wigs soon
perched atop many European heads.
These full-bottom men's hairpieces
demanded such thick, long locks
that ten heads of hair
could go into just one.
Within a century, the number of Parisian
wigmakers quadrupled.
Even small villages often boasted
at least one wigmaker.
They generally fabricated their
merchandise from human hair—
probably sourced from poor women—
or from cheaper materials like wool
or horsehair.
To clean their wigs, eliminate odors,
and absorb sweat,
people showered them in perfumed powders
of flour, chalk, and aromatics
like violet, rose, clove, and lemon.
It was a messy business,
with entire rooms designated for the task.
In fact, that's where the term "powder
room" is thought to have originated.
By the mid-1700s, men's wigs remained
popular but became simpler,
often styled with curls around the face
and a ponytail in back.
Women's wigs, however,
soared to new heights,
literally towering up to a meter.
Wigmakers often constructed these using
rods, ribbons, and wool stuffing.
And once covered with hair,
the wig could be adorned
with all manner of accoutrements.
Lighter colored wigs became fashionable
and were only enhanced with powders,
sometimes tinted purple, pink, or blue.
But not everyone bought into the trend.
Caricaturists mocked big wig-wearers,
framing them as frivolously flamboyant.
And the hotter temperatures
in some of Europe's colonies
might have made heavy powdered wigs
a nuisance.
In 1740, a visitor in Maryland observed
that so few people wore wigs,
he said, "you would imagine they
were all sick, or going to bed."
In the late 1700s,
a popular backlash against aristocratic
decadence gained steam.
As France faced a bread shortage,
flour-powdered wigs were viewed
as particularly problematic.
And in 1789, the French Revolution
kicked off.
In 1795, England's parliament
passed a "powder tax"
that led many to abandon their big wigs.
And so, they fell out of fashion,
left high and powder-dry,
like mere relics of a hair-brained
past craze.
