The Wigmaker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg / An Account of His Barbering, Hair-dressing, & Peruke-Making Services, & Some Remarks on Wigs of Various Styles.

THE MOST POPULAR PERUKES

The French EncyclopÉdie PerruquiÈre listed 45 styles of wig in its 1727 edition, 115 styles in that of 1764. While a complete catalogue is impossible here, some description in words and pictures of the most frequent varieties may assist gentlemen of the twentieth century to choose (in their mind’s eye) the style that would suit them best. The wigs pictured and described do not presume to share the amazing characteristics claimed by a London maker of 1760. His advertising avowed:

to ecclesiastical perukes he gives a certain demure, sanctified air; he confers on the tye-wigs of the law an appearance of great sagacity and deep penetration; on those of the faculty of physick he casts a solemnity and gravity that seems equal to the profoundest knowledge. His military smarts ... [give] the wearer a most war-like fierceness.

As for color, any style might be made up in any of the several colors favored for wigs: black, white, grizzle (an iron-gray mixture of black and white hair), brown, and flaxen are mentioned most often in surviving accounts. Less popular shades included milk white, light natural, yellowish, pale, chestnut, auburn, piss-burnt, and gray. Red was deemed a “disagreeable colour” for hair and was rarely if ever used in wigs.

The styles here shown were all popular at some time during the eighteenth century, though perhaps some of them were worn more often in England and France than in the colonies. On the other hand, a popular colonial style, the “Albemarle” wig, is not in our catalogue because nothing has been found to tell what it looked like.

Bob wig.

No eighteenth-century illustration of a bob wig, so labeled, has been found. This picture, from Diderot’s Encyclopedia (like all the others in this group) shows a “bonnet” or “short wig.” The brown dress bob favored by so many of Edward Charlton’s customers must have been very similar. A plain bob presumably had fewer curls, but neither it nor the dress bob would have had any queue or hanging side curls.

Brigadier wig.

This “brigadier wig” shows what a few of Charlton’s patrons ordered from him. It was known also as a major wig and a military wig. The “tye wig” mentioned in Charlton’s accounts must have looked very much like this (again we lack any clear contemporary illustration) except that it had more than two curls tied at the nape of the neck.

Queue wig

What Charlton called a “queue wig” might have been any wig with a tail—or even with two, like this double pigtail. The tails were usually bound tightly with black ribbon, though sailors used leather. A single queue, braided but not bound, with a large bow at the top and a small bow at the bottom, was known as a “Ramillies wig” after the battle at that place (1706). The wearer of a Ramillies often doubled the end of the queue back up to the wig and held it with a comb or ribbon.

Bag wig

In the “bag wig” the long hair at the back was simply tied inside a black taffeta bag, usually with a rosette of black ribbon for decoration. In England and France this style, like so many others, was carried to such an extreme that the bag eventually covered the wearer’s entire shoulders. The exaggeration at least had the virtue of protecting his clothing from the pomade and powder of the wig. It was going out of fashion in Virginia by Charlton’s time. Note the small strap and buckle on the wig.

Square wig.

By the time of Diderot’s Encyclopedia, the “square wigs” shown here were the nearest remnants of the full-bottomed wigs that had gone out of style about 1740. These last can still be seen, however, in portraits of royalty and nobility of the seventeenth century and early years of the eighteenth, and of course the style still holds for English judges when they are on the bench.

Natural wig.

This, incredibly, was called a “natural wig,” and was supposed to resemble the wearer’s own hair. It fell down behind in long, straight locks, ending either with a single roll, or tapering away into a series of ringlets.

Knotted wig.

The resemblance between this “knotted wig” and its distant predecessor, the full-bottomed wig, may not be apparent at first glance. The flowing locks of the full-bottomed and campaign wigs (the latter having two long curls falling to the front of each shoulder) were inconvenient to travelers, sportsmen, and soldiers. So they adopted the habit of knotting up the curls on both sides and tying together those in back; eventually this expedient became a style in its own right, but with a single corkscrew curl in back.

Cadogan or club wig.

The “cadogan” or “club wig,” its name attributed to the first Earl of Cadogan, became popular in England in the 1770s, especially with the foppish young men who called themselves “Macaronis” and went to absurd extremes in style, wearing cadogans several times the size of this modest example. The queue of straight hair was looped back on itself and tied with string or ribbon to form a vertical bow of hair.

Clerical wig.

This is the kind of clerical wig, with built-in tonsure, that Roman Catholic clergy in France wore. Anglican clerics in Virginia, as Charlton’s accounts testify, wore brown dress bobs just like those of so many of their parishioners.

Clyx.com