18th Century Woman’s Hairstyles
A collection of 18th Century paintings from France & England, depicting some of the hairstyles of the time, among them the tête de mouton (or “sheep’s head”), the pouf & the hérisson (or “hedgehog”).Interestingly as I was gathering paintings for this reference , I came across this excerpt regarding the elaborate hairstyles that were fashionable during the 1770’s from Marie-Antoinette Mother, Queen Maria Theresa to Marie-Antoinette.
In 1775, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria-Hungary wrote to her daughter Marie-Antoinette –“Likewise I cannot help but touch upon a point that many of the papers repeat to me too often: it is the hairstyle that you wear. They say that from the roots it measures 36 pouces high and with all the feathers and ribbons that hold all of that up! You know that I have always been of the opinion that one should follow fashion moderately, but never carry it to excess. A pretty young queen full of charms has no need of all these follies. Quite the contrary. A simple hairstyle suits her better and is more appropriate for a queen. She must set the tone, and everyone will hurry to follow even your smallest errors…”
Marie-Antoinette responded – “It is true that I am a bit occupied by my hairstyle, and as for the feathers, everyone wears them, and it would look extraordinarily out of place not to” (source: Hosford, Desmond. “The Queen’s Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA.”).
Men’s Hairstyles
Victorian [x]Woman’s Hairstyles
Victorian [x] | Edwardian [x] | 1920’s [x] | 1930’s [x] | WW2 [x]