The Hair Historian

Five fun hair things in the excellent, and free, .vam 🪥

Did you have a Girl’s World doll?

📍 Young V&A, London

The Virgin and Child (‘The Madonna with the Iris’), c. 1503-8,
workshop of Albrecht Dürer with Hans Baldung Grien

If you can get to the National Gallery in London, go see her in room 55. The hair is incredible in person!

Hair formed an important part of cultural identity in Ancient Egypt. At the of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, part of University College London Museums and Collections, you’ll find lots of interesting related artefacts – swipe to see a few of my favourites.
 
📍 Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, London

A selection of portraits of Brazilian dancer and actress Marina Montini, who was the muse of painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.

Di Cavalcanti painted Montini almost daily between 1969 and 1976. Swipe to the end to see a photo!

I recently picked up the new Penguin Classics edition of Operation Heartbreak, Duff Cooper’s 1950 short story inspired by the true events of the 1943 mission codenamed 'Operation Mincemeat'.

I vaguely recognised the artwork as being a WWII recruitment poster, but had no idea the original artwork was known as the ‘Blonde Bombshell’ – and that the ads only lasted three weeks before getting pulled for being *too glamorous* 💅

The poster was printed in 1941 to recruit volunteers for the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the British Army's women's branch. It was designed by artist Abram Games and modelled by a neighbour, Doreen Murphy.

Shortly after being published, the complaints began, both in parliament and in the press. The Bombshell faced accusations of being too frivolous for the task at hand and resembling a jaunty advert for makeup, not war work – “her hair was too fresh from the beauty parlour”noted one critic.

It *is* rather immaculate, styled in the popular rolls that allowed women to maintain a bit of glamour while wearing their regulation caps and uniforms, working with shorter hair lengths and limited access to styling products.

The poster was soon swapped for one featuring a photograph of Private Mary Catherine Roberts, marching purposefully. Great eyebrows. Abram Games went back to the drawing board, drafting another ATS print in 1942 featuring a soldier in a steel helmet – still lovely hair imo, but she was met with criticism for being ‘too Soviet’. The final design, published in 1944, was considered to portray a suitably English rose, with immaculate lipstick, but an arguably less glamorous coiff.

My grandma was in the ATS, and although she was a fairly no-nonsense northerner who I don’t recall ever wearing any makeup, I’d like to think that a bit of lipstick and blonde hair in an advert didn’t mislead her about the importance of her role 🫡

There’s always hair stuff in a history exhibition if you know where to look 👀

I wonder what hair accessories are on Artemis 2? 🙇‍♀️🚀✨

Can’t stop won’t stop talking about evening wigs ✨

The V&A is a treasure trove of hair history. Swipe for five objects from their collections I spotted on my last trip. Which is your fave?

Friends, 1933, Béla Kontul

Daphne Charlton, c.1935, Mary Adshead