Project: Polonaise- Part 7, The Wig

As my model had dyed, bright coloured hair making a wig for the costume was very important as a way to keep the authenticity. I had made a wig in a previous Year of my course which I actually felt ended up looking much nicer.

The Second Year Wig

The Third Year Wig on my model

The wig was constructed by shaping several 'hat crown' shapes from buckram, using head blocks. The bottom one was then shaped to cover my model's hairline and the others were stitched on top and covered in wadding and ice wool to create the base.

For the hair of the wig we used Plumber's hemp, which can be bought online quite cheaply. As it was the same colour as the hair on the fashion plate I was copying I didn't need to dye it but if I had it would have been done at this stage.

The hemp was stitched onto the base using a curved needle and couching stitches.

To create the Chignon Hairstyle in a similar way to the fashion plate I stitched strands of hemp around the wig, fastened them up and sprayed with hairspray to keep the shape.

 hanks of hemp were then curled with hair curlers and arranged and stitched around the wig to create the curls.

I do think that the finished wig looks a lot better from the back than the front and that the hat improved it's appearance. next up is the shoes in part 8.