18th century France (Marie Antoinette's reign)
Marie Antoinette (2006) Directed by Sofia Coppola
"The second half of the 18th century is an era particularly identified with hair and makeup, as these became such potent symbols of aristocracy during the Enlightenment and French Revolution. France and (to a lesser degree) England were the fashion leaders of this era, and it is to these countries that this article looks to identify the changing trends in hair and makeup."
"Wigs were introduced in the 17th century, when King Louis XIII of France (1610-43), who had let his own hair grow long, began to bald prematurely at the age of 23. Courtiers were quick to emulate the fashion, which spread to England during the period of the Restoration of Charles II (1660s-80s)....However, women rarely wore whole wigs. Instead, they increasingly hired professional hairdressers (coiffeurs) who added false hair to their natural hair. "
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” (quoted in Hosford).
Into Modern Hair...
Modern French Hair Fashion
Braids(As it turns out, "French" braids aren't French at all.)
"If we're looking for the origins of modern-day French braids, Eurasia isn't even the right continent. Instead, the place to start is North Africa. People have been wearing the three-strand gathered plait for thousands of years, and the earliest evidence of the style comes to us from the Tassili n'Ajjer mountain range in Algeria. There, rock art depicting women wearing rowed braids dates back almost 6,000 years."
http://www.popsugar.com/beauty/History-French-Braid-22404991
More Modern Hair
