How Hair Fashions Have Evolved from 400 Years Ago to Today
Woman spends all her ingenuity in the garden of hats, on varieties that range between laughable oddity and vulgarity. If she but knew that the finest crown for her head is the hair the Creator has bestowed on her — hair that takes whatever shape she pleases, in proportion to her taste, and harmonizes with the colors of her face and her eyes, for nature knows nothing but harmony, even in the wildflowers — if she but knew that, she would turn her care to choosing the style that suits her kind of beauty, and spare herself the trouble of hunting through the various sorts of hats.
For our kind readers, here is a review of some of the styles as they evolved in Europe over the last four hundred years; it will be noticed that they evolved from the ugly toward the ever more beautiful.
In picture number (1) the
fashion appears as it was at the beginning of the Renaissance, around the year 1550; what shows in it is the stress on the strength and thickness of the hair more than any care for beauty.
In picture (2) appears the curling of the hair in 1680, which was the beginning of hair let down over the forehead.
In picture (3) appear the wires and ribbons with which, in 1690, woman helped set off the beauty
of her hair; this continued for a quarter of a century.
By 1780 (4) it had reached its utmost: feathers, pearls, ribbons, and wires — and even little steamships — perched atop hair coated with pomade and powder.
In 1830 (5) the fashion did
not change much, but it inclined toward relative simplicity.
In 1880 (6) women's education