Eighteenth-century men had a strong sense of the growth of consumer choice and fashion in wigs.
One of the main literary source for this era is the satirical "history of fashions" by the Parisian barrister Guillaume François Roger Molé, written in 1773. Molé is concerned with the wigs worn by the trend-setters of the capital, the petits-maîtres, rather than those of ordinary men in the provinces. He sees changing fashion as important, even in the first years of the century. The driving force was the Parisian wigmakers' corporation, whose power had been consolidated by the renewal of its statutes, and the creation of new licences in 1706 and 1714. Constant revolutions in hairstyle gave it members new scope, since each demanded a different set of curls (p.123). "The number of curled styles was almost infinite. Each year, each month, each year, each week produced a new one.... (p.299): "Thanks to the Perruquiers, the heads of French petits-maîtres became little works of art, beautiful jewels". (p.298-9) The growth of hairdressing was part of the same development; due to the inconvenience of maintaining one's own hair, it added to rather than diminished the demand for false hair (p.299-300)
Wigs of the early 18th century
After the mid-1690s, the massive wigs of the Grand Siècle were already on the decline. Wigs ceased to extend over the chest and shoulders and were confined in bouchons, boudins, or in curls. The mass of hair on the back gradually decreased in volume.
Louis XIV's regulations of 1706 laid down set prices for wigs, which give a clue as to the styles current among the population at the time:
10 livres and below: common wigs, brown, short and without additions.
10-30 livres: brown wigs à l'espagnole and à la cavalière [styles of full-length wig] and ecclesiastical wigs (perruques d'abbé).
30 livres and above: wigs à l'espagnole and à la cavalière in other colours and generally perruques quarrées of all colour and length.
[The perruque quarrée - "square wig" -represented a new style, still full length but flat on top. Also of note is the premium commanded by wigs "other than brown"]
To observers like Molé, the collective sense of relief at the end of Louis XIV's long reign, was expressed by a general sloughing off of heavy periwigs:
Men of the court, Merchants, and Financiers judged that it was time to abdicate great heads of hair. Louis XIV, who loved them so much, no longer existed: a young prince ascended the throne and in-folio wigs were disgraced. New editions were made, which were more convenient, more portable....(Molé: p.297-8).
The Regent, lover of pleasure, sumptuous celebrations and luxury in dress, soon banished the sad, lugubrious costumes of the old Court. He was the first to rid himself of the old embarrassing and ridiculous perruque; the style he substituted, whitened by powder and impregnated with beautiful odours, soon opened a new career of activity, interest and profit for the 850 wigmakers of Paris. Some adopted point de Milan lace, some invented even more convenient fabrics; all dedicated themselves to bringing elegance to a form of headwear that, until then had scarcely been more than a shapeless mass of horsehair.
("Perruque" in Dictionaire des sciences médicales ed. Panckoucke,1820)
In fact full wigs persisted for formal attire until at least the mid-century although the trend was towards shorter variants. As the German writer Fredrich Nicolai later pointed out, the Regent himself is usually depicted in the relatively full perruque à l'espagnole, as were members of his Court.(Nicolai, p.141) Senior soldiers and magistrates (those who "wanted to be taken seriously") also favoured long wigs. These more formal styles were often associated with particular professions and had splendid names (perruque à la cavalière, à la financière, quarrée(carrée), nouée, à la naturelle).
Wig powder
Powdered white wigs were not completely unknown in the 17th century but it was in the Regency period that they became widespread. According to Molé, although women had used hair powder, men had mostly contented themselves with washing and perfuming. The petits-maîtres now began to appear with both their natural hair and wigs powered. Moreover, it became the practice not merely to mix powder into the hair but to spread it profusely all over the head. Soon this became the general fashion: "Men, women, infants, old people; all began to use powder; every head became white". Apart from a short phase in the 1750s, when blond and grey wigs briefly gained favour, heavily powdered white hair remained the norm throughout the century.
Fashionable styles of the era:
Knotted wigs - Perruques nouées
At the beginning of the century, writes Molé, the petits maîtres began to notice the inconvenience of large heavy wigs, even though wigmakers put much effort into making them light and comfortable. The first departure was to divide the hair at the back and knot the two parts together in summer. Gradually the knots became part of the wig and les perruques nouée were born.(Molé p.296-7):
Saint-Simon reports that, on the death of the prince de Condé in 1709, reluctant mourners showed their lack of respect by turning up in "perruques nouées, poudrées de blanc". Knotted wigs at this stage were clearly considered indecently informal.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fW5OAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA132
Watteau's Enseigne de Gersaint, painted in 1720-21, captures a splendid fashion moment: the man on his knees to the right of the scene wears a gleaming white knotted wig, complete with the central corkscrew or boudin, straight out of the plates of the Encyclopédie:
New styles demanded technical innovation in design. According to the Art du perruquier (1761), flat wigs - perruques quarrées and perruques nouées - required a "toupet", an single expanse of flat hair which extended from the middle to the back of the head, usually made or stiffened with horsehair. (p.44). Toupets were again at first considered informal but gained rapidly in respectability; the full perruque quarrée was the preferred wig of judges throughout the 18th century.
Bagwigs - Perruques en bourse
The greatest innovation of the early 18th century was the adoption by the fashionable of military-style wigs tied into pigtails or "quenes", above all "bagwigs" in which the hair was confined in a taffeta bag or bourse (sometimes also called a crapaud ie. a "toad".) These perruques en bourse became so much a symbol of the age that they were commonly known as perruques à la régence.
Everyone (even the German wig historian Nicolai) concurred that the bagwig was a quintessentially French invention. Frederick William of Prussia imposed the queue on his troops (and wore it himself); in France the Regent imposed the bourse on his cavalry. This, thought Nicolai, was the first step towards diminishing the size of wigs (Nicolai, p. 141). The consensus was that "bags" had originally been used for horse's tails half a century earlier. By the 1710s they become common for the wigs of young officers, and soon entered general civilian attire (Quicherat, p.563). According to Molé, such wigs were at first reserved for travel or for undress, or for wear during inclement weather, but soon became eminently respectable (Molé, p.119-20) Walther's Manuel de toilette of 1776 confirms that they were appreciated because of their convenient and rapidly adopted as part of fashionable dress (quoted Kwass, p.15) . Nicolai remarks on the irony that a style invented for the army was universally adopted by the Courts of Europe (p.141).
Bourses were typically of black gummed taffeta, with a rosette or bow of the same colour for decoration. Earlier example were square, medium sized and appeared to be full of hair - they were often stuffed with horsehair to achieve this effect. Later bourses became narrower at the top and flatter (Quicherat, p. 563). A smart perruque à la régence classically featured ribbons which ended in a second bow tied under the chin. Here is a young gent in just such a wig.....
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| Engraving after Nicolas Cochin showing dress of about 1725 |
The new short wigs were characteristically divided into three sections; two side pieces (sometimes known as "cadenettes") and a central portion, the queue proper, sweep back from the forehead to be tied at the nape of the neck. The variants were endless; the queue could be worn as a pony tail or plaited into a long thin "bout-de-rat". At one point in the 1720s men of fashion wore false hair intermingled with their own to produce long, thick queues. The sides could be curled or trimmed and shaped into flaps commonly known as "ears" (Quicherat, p.562-3).
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| English wigs with ridiculous "ears", from Bernard Lens, The Exact Dress of the Head (1725-6) https://www.rct.uk/collection/924246/bernard-lens-head-dresses |
The Art du perruquier explains that different types of mounts had to be employed, depending on whether the wearer's ears were to be left showing: these were called montures pleines, montures à oreille and montures à demi-oreille. The monture à oreille was invented for the bag wig. Since it sat less firmly on the head, extra straps were required to keep the wig in place. (Art du perruquier (1761), p.22)
From the Mercure of 1730, we learn that, at this date, long wigs were no longer much worn by the fashionable. It was already important for wigs to imitate nature: hair would be allowed to grow at the front and be combed into the wig to disguise the seam. At this time dandies affected exaggerated "ears" called "oreilles de chien barbet" after the lop-eared barbet dogs.
Long "Perruques quarrées" are hardly in fashion at all, even among Magistrates, who now wear their wigs much shorter. Crimped wigs no longer exist. Wigmakers have lately become much more skilled in the art of imitating natural hair...indeed it is impossible not to be fooled, even close up...especially if one is prepared to wear one's own hair at the front combed up and mixed with the hair of the wig. The so-called "mustard-seed" powder, which is used to excess, serves to hide the artifice still further.
Natural wigs, "en bourse" or "en queue", are generally in fashion, principally among the young. They imitate nature well and cost very little; but it has to be said that the type that let your ears show, known "ears of the Barbet Dog", are really ridiculous.
The Perruques à l'Espagnole [a sort of heavy periwig] are again not much in fashion; such wigs are worn less long and are called Bonnets. In Summer everyone wears them, some longer, others shorter.
Knotted wigs "à la cavalière" hold their own among serious people with no pretensions to youth. There are also hunting wigs called "bichons"; these are a little longer than the "perruques d'abbé", tied behind with a ribbon and ending in a curl.
Then there are broken Wigs ("perruques brizées) or "three-piece wigs", that people who have their own hair wear when it is really cold. These are most usually worn indoors to hide paper curlers.
Bourses for wigs are now being worn very wide and high, almost at the roots of the hair, so that some of the neck is uncovered. Over the bourse is a large knot of gummed ribbon; a ribbon goes round the neck and ends under the chin....
Mercure, October 1730, p.2319-20.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H4tQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA2319#v=onepage&q&f=false
When the perruque en bourse became accepted formal wear, new casual styles were popularised. In the 1740s the queue, with a ribbon twisted and pulled tight around it, was worn as long as possible. (Thus "ruban de queue" entered the French language to mean a distance that never seemed to end. See Quicherat p.563) By about 1755 the horizontal curls at the side had been reduced to two layers and the ears could just be seen.
Novelty wigs
Certain materials were prohibited by the statutes of the Corporation: artificially bleached hair, hair of prohibited animals (most wigs included some horsehair), wool and cotton. or fil-de-fer wigs. Most confrontations over banned products took place in the 1750s. Perversely there was a fashion for wool wigs in Paris in the early 1750s. At the same time fil-de-fer wigs made from silver or brass thread began to appear. According to Molé:
Upon their appearance, alarm spread among the wigmakers. One must admit these hairstyles, actually hairpieces, took on a frightful exterior: they gained the imposing name of economical wigs and promised to cause neither pain nor embarrassment to those who adopted them. Rain, wind, hail, &c, they were able to defy them all: a single fil-de-fer wig sufficed for the most robust of men & would accompany him all the way to the grave. (p.304-5)
In December 1750, in a landmark ruling, the Lieutenant General ruled in favour of the guild officers' confiscation of a fil-de-fer wig.
Wigs made of glass and foliage were "pure curiosities" (p.303)
One might suppose they didn't exist, but the Rochefort historian Pauline Bord, has found one for sale in a Paris antique shop.
Pauline Bord, "La coiffure masculine", Rochefort en histoire [blog] post of 10.06.2015.
https://rochefortenhistoire.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/la-coiffure-masculine/
References
Guillaume François Roger Molé, Histoire des modes françaises (1773), p.251-310: "Histoire des perruques",
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EFJyyKoIgp8C
Entry for Molé in the Dictionnaire des journalistes:
http://dictionnaire-journalistes.gazettes18e.fr/journaliste/582-guillaume-mole
Christoph Friedrich Nicolai , Recherches historiques sur l'emploi des faux cheveux et des perruques dans les temps ancien et modernes (1801, French translation 1809).
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DUdSgnyqwIMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Jules Étienne Joseph Quicherat, Histoire du costume en France (1877)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UUXaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA658
