I recently received my copy of 18th Century Hair & Wig Styling: History & Step-by-Step Techniques by Kendra Van Cleave, and i seriously can't say enough good things about this fantastic new resource volume. It's a full-color, 298-page, 8"x10" book, very professionally produced and packed full of fantastic information about a range of 18th century hairstyles, including those intimidatingly-large "Marie Antoinette" styles.

Ms. Van Cleave is a costumer, yes, but she is also a fashion historian and academic librarian, and the depth of her research and knowledge really shines through in the first section of the book, on the history of the styles in question. It's clear that she's not only done exhaustive research on hair of the period, but also tracked down and reproduced a wealth of visual research from portraits and other paintings, fashion plates, and illustrations of 18th century primary sources.

The second section of the book is called Techniques, and focuses on the practical terms, tools, products, and so forth needed to create these styles. If you have little or no experience styling hair and/or wigs, this section will get you up to speed on not just the basics, but also topics like making your own wefts, adding hair into wigs, creating structures/foundations/rats, and so forth. It also includes info on powdering hair and wigs, and a lot of great photographs documenting the styling methods discussed.

The third section, Finished Styles, is the most exciting step-by-step how-to overview of exactly how to do 22 different ladies' styles and three men's. If you've done much historical research on hairstyles of the 18th century, you'll recognize some of the most iconic ones (giant ship atop giant hair, anyone?). These are shown in a tutorial layout--instructions and photographs illustrating each step of the way, from an initial photo showing the model's actual unstyled hair and/or the unstyled wig beforehand, through to the finished look.

There's an extensive bibliography, a list of sources for wigs as well as style/product names for those used in the projects depicted, and even a tutorial on making a wig bag for men's styles that need one.

The book was clearly a labor of love--produced with help from a Kickstarter campaign, self-published, and as best i can tell, only available directly from the author at the book's website. At the $50 price point, i'm sure there'll be some grumbling at not being able to take advantage of bookstore gift certificates to purchase it, but I can assure you, it's well worth the money. I'm just thrilled that it came out in time for me to use it in my upcoming millinery and wig seminar!

Tonight is Opening Night for Pericles, so it's time for an overview post of the work that came through the Costume Crafts department on this show! This post doesn't include every single item we worked on, but it does cover quite a few...

First, let me offer my usual disclaimer that all of the images and information that i share in this blog is strictly by permission of the artists, artisans, designers, and companies that i work for. I have worked under non-disclosure contracts and the pieces i have produced in those jobs have not appeared on this blog nor been discussed. I have had some inquiries about the legality of "behind the scenes"-style blogging--when i write about PlayMakers shows and the UNC graduate program, it is with their knowledge and permission.

Now that that's out of the way, ( let's go! (Lots of images behind cut-tag.) )

Recall my post of a couple weeks back on a joint project between myself and wig maker Jaime Blinn-Bagley on lace-front wig making and 1830s coal-scuttle bonnet construction. Looks like what i thought was going to be a two-part series is going to actually extend to three parts, so here's the long-awaited Part Two.

In case you missed the first post, we chose some historical research from the 1830s and are building in-tandem a wig to be styled in the Apollo knot hairstyle and a bonnet to be worn over the hairstyle. We left off with the wig production at the stage just before ventilation: the headwrap and hairline tracing had happened, the wig to be refronted had been prepared for lace-fronting, and the wig lace had been cut to shape and attached to the wig.

Bonnet construction had left off on the cliffhanger of buckram shape approval--a wired paper mockup had been created, fitted, and the pattern altered to reflect changes that came from the mockup fitting.

( So what's next? )

Another of my long-term projects has gotten to a point that it's worth posting a midstream overview: 1830's hats & hairdos!

I'm doing this project in tandem with our wig master, Jaime Blinn-Bagley. Jaime is giving a guest lecture on lace-backed facial hair and hand-ventilated lace-front wigs to my millinery class.

The students are almost finished with a unit on buckram hat foundations and the next unit is all about wigs, how hats interact with hair, and hairstyles that are really more like hats (i.e., huge 18th c. Madame de Pomadour wigs with buckram infrastructures). If you want to cruise through a cool photogallery that illustrates more on this topic, check out these photographs of the crowns made for Dior's fall 2004 collection, where the crowns have wire foundations for the hairdos built onto them.

Jaime and i decided to choose a period in which hairstyles and hat shapes influenced one another; Jaime would front a wig and style it in the period style, while i simultaneously built a hat designed to be worn with the wig/style. In this way, she would be able to show my class the process of fronting a wig, and i'd be able to document how a milliner takes hair and wigs into consideration during the construction of a hat. So what'd we choose?

( 1830s: Coal scuttle bonnet with Apollo knot updo! )