"A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair."
Times Literary Supplement The Enlightenment (1650-1800) was the
Golden Age of hair. Hair dominated fashion as never before or
since, with more men and women than ever donning elaborate wigs and
hairdos. Such unprecedentedly extravagant styling naturally
increased the demand for the services of professional hairdressers,
whose numbers grew apace throughout the period. They, in turn,
created a new range of hair-care products and a new literature of
hair-care advice, ranging from hairstyles to hygiene, thus
enlarging the market and further stimulating consumption. A
Cultural History of Hair in the Enlightenment offers a record of
their marketing success, mindful that the ultimate product of this
culture of consumption was the consumer. Literary and visual arts
celebrated the ambitious tetes and coifs of the period, but they
also lampooned and caricatured the most fashionable in society. By
exploring paintings, prints, plays, poems, novels, treatises, and
advice manuals, the contributors to this volume show how hair in
this period expanded beyond the fashionable and the superstitious,
and became newly understood as material, inspiring empirical
research and powering applications such as in the woolen goods
industry. The essays in this volume-covering Religion and
Ritualized Belief, Self and Society, Fashion and Adornment,
Production and Practice, Health and Hygiene, Gender and Sexuality,
Race and Ethnicity, Class and Social Status, and Cultural
Representations-explore hair's many meanings and its importance
during the Enlightenment period.
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