The History of the Weave
Adding additional hair pieces, or weaves is a practice that has been in place for centuries. According to sources, the earliest hair extensions were around Ancient Egypt back in 5000BC!
Men and women in those days used hair pieces to achieve hierarchy in their society, the more fashionable they looked the higher regard they demanded from others.
Synthetic fibres were not available then so men would cut all their hair off and then fashion their own wigs from their own locks, women would weave their hair adding that coveted look of added volume and height.
At the turn of the 18th century in Europe wigs really were popular, but at this time intricate and decorative up-style were really the thing (think big ballgowns and Cinderella). By the next century, Victorian era women began experimenting with human hair extensions to achieve the popular ‘Pompadour' style, a hairstyle named after Madame de Pompadour a mistress of King Louis XV of France.
Madame de Pompadour actually wore her own hair back rather than up, with no extra volume on the top, so we are not entirely sure why this style was attributed to her. Although there are numerous variations of the style for men, women, and children, the basic concept is having a large volume of hair swept upwards from the face and worn high over the forehead, and sometimes upswept around the sides and back as well. After importing hundreds of tons of real hair from France, the women donned this style as the ultimate status hairstyle.
Move forwards into the 20th century, pop music and influences from famous actors helped grow hair extensions and weaves substantially. From the 1940s onwards hair styling was buzzing, step into the 1960s with beehives and the need to be big and beautiful we say a huge surge of hairpieces used, then moving into the 1980s we began to see styles reemerge from Ancient Egypt, such as beading, colourful additions and more weaved hairstyles becoming the mainstream. Music had a massive influence to play in this too, and we saw, in particular black women using weaves more and more to achieve beautiful looks.
So now in present-day we see blondes donning hair strips to create longer and fuller hair styles, weaves that seamlessly blend into waves and afro hair becoming one of the most interesting to have with a plethora of playful and stunning styles to create.
Of course, taking your hairpiece or weave off and revealing your natural look is just as striking, be happy with your hair whatever you may have. You are, after all, gorgeous.