Marie Antoinette

Question: hair of the women in the 18th century (french colonial times)?

i'm doing beauty and the beast and i need a peasant hairstyle.

i'm only playing a middle class woman so nothing too over the top (NO MARIE ANTOINETTE HAIRSTYLES!!!).

thanks in advance. !

Answer: Girls wore their hair down, girl's "of age" (old enough to marry) wore their hair "UP" pinned or in a bun, but uncovered - covered hair (a cap or a muffin style cap) indicted the she was married or not planning on getting married. Style wasn't an issue for lower class women, middle class women may have aped the upper classes, but only for more formal occasions.

Website for images of muffin caps: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0oGk5UrTlpLq2kB_XRXNyoA?ei=UTF-8&p=renaissance%20muffin%20cap&rd=r2&fr2=tab-web&fr=yfp-t-701-s

" HAIRSTYLES throughout U.S. history have reflected political, social, and cultural trends as well as personal taste in grooming.

The Puritans, who were among the first European settlers in the United States, cut their hair in a way that expressed their staunch Christian beliefs and antimonarchist politics. In their native England, Puritan men were known as "Roundheads" because they cut their hair short in contrast to their monarchist enemies, the Cavaliers, who sported the courtly style of long, flowing locks. As the Puritans secured their base of power in seventeenth-century colonial Massachusetts, they passed such laws as the one in 1634 that banned long hair if it was "uncomely" or harmed "the common good."

As the colonies grew and were settled by other Europeans, the Puritan hair ethic was replaced by a hair aesthetic that to date is unique in American history. Early eighteenth-century hairstyles, rooted in European royal fashions, were distinctive for their extravagant use of wigs, hair extensions, curling, crimping, and powdering for both men and women. The 1700s was the only period in U.S. history when it was socially acceptable for men to wear long hair and wigs. Even military men styled their hair long, tied back into a pigtail, and powdered it white or gray. In the decades just prior to the Revolution, American women of the upper class mirrored the high hairstyles of their European counterparts and used cushions, pads, wigs, and wires to have their hairstyles reach new heights. Patriotic fervor felled these towers of hair, which had become synonymous with the English royalty, and women's hairstyles became more modest. By the end of the eighteenth century, men were also opting for simpler hairstyles and were abandoning their wigs, powder, and pigtails."

Quoted from this website: http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/dah_04/dah_04_01832.html

Paul Mitchell The School Nashville-Around the World Competition

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