Stylized hairstyle in Rococo style. Women's hairstyles in Europe

During the Renaissance, rigid religious dogmas and medieval asceticism were replaced by completely new values. The desire to enjoy life here and now has had a certain influence on hairstyles. Women are once again striving to stand out from the crowd and creating hairstyles that are amazing in their complexity and luxury.

The Renaissance is characterized by a return to the traditions of ancient culture, including a return to ancient hairstyles. Women begin to decorate their hair with expensive jewelry and tiaras. Blonde hair was highly valued. Women of the Renaissance used various natural dyes or sat for hours under the scorching sun, waiting for their strands to fade and become lighter. Despite this, white skin was valued in this era, so fashionistas carefully protected their facial skin from tanning using wide-brimmed hats.

The new trend of the Renaissance was the open high forehead. Sometimes women tried to artificially increase the height of the forehead; to do this, they shaved off part of the hair above the forehead. It was also customary to shave eyebrows.

The 17th century saw the advent of the Baroque style with its elaborate decorative costumes and high hairstyles. At this time, the “fontange” hairstyle became widespread, which was a high hairstyle with a hard cap that rose above the forehead with the help of a wire frame.

Hairstyles begin to resemble tall towers that were secured with a frame. To create such a hairstyle required a lot of time and money, and only representatives of high society could afford it.

A high, open forehead is still in fashion; the forehead line is again raised by shaving. Hairstyles are richly decorated with gold and silver jewelry and precious stones.

In the 18th century, Baroque was replaced by Rococo, and tall, unnatural towers on the head were replaced by elegant and sophisticated little hairstyles. In this era, tubular curls come into fashion. The most common hairstyle among fashionistas is curls raised and laid at the back of the head, decorated with ribbons, fresh flowers or pearls.

However, in the second half of the 18th century, huge updos gained popularity again. Now images of sea battles and sprawling gardens are created on a woman’s head. It is during this period that the hairstyle reaches its incredible size. Very often, hairpieces are used to create hairstyles. To create additional volume, special pillow linings were also used, which were reinforced with pins.

« Sing and have fun, not paying attention to the petty vanity of the mob“—perhaps this was indeed the motto of the gallant age, the golden age, which we now call “the time of Rococo.”

In fact, in the first half of the 18th century there was no Rococo style. This name appeared after the death of the “gallant time” and was born by lovers of classicism, who desperately wanted to separate themselves from the pretentious excess of recent fashion. Initially, this term referred only to a small part of the style, namely to the decoration of fountains and then fashionable garden grottoes with “wild” stone and “rocaille” - shells (real, stone, and more often - plaster). Of course, it was difficult to imagine a decent estate without such decorations, but, believe me, plaster decor was not the main thing at this time - the hedonistic time dedicated to “Cupid and Venus.” The main thing (as at any time) was the worldview. And the educated, well-fed and wealthy European of that time wanted to survey the world with a light, careless gaze and not focusing on anything unpleasant.

New deities

Oddly enough, Rococo was a natural outgrowth of Baroque, a temperamental and stormy period that paid no less attention to Mars than to Venus. But the bloodiest wars ended, religious differences were slightly settled, in “wild Russia” the boyars gave up their beards and hung pictures of nymphs and naiads on the walls - and the place of not only Mars, but also Jupiter on the Olympian throne was taken by a plump winged child with a bow and arrows.

This throne was surrounded by women. No, of course, most of the thrones of the earth were still occupied by men, but this did not cancel the “feminization” of the century: literature, music, painting, fashion produced what the fair sex wanted.

However, what about ephemeral fashion? Even such a solid and durable art as architecture has become extremely feminine.

The large, majestic forms of Baroque buildings did not disappear completely, but lost their power, becoming covered with hundreds and thousands of decorative elements.

Rococo architecture did not care about being rational, expedient or balanced - it wanted to be playful and charming. Straight lines and angles, smooth walls, strict symmetry - all this is a thing of the past, giving way to circles, ovals and curves. Thin railing posts turned into swollen balusters, capitals became more and more magnificent, cornices and roofs were decorated with flowerpots and sculptures, any, even the most insignificant protrusion was propped up, if not by a caryatid, then by a pilaster. The facade of any building seemed to breathe from the most unexpected alternations of bulges and depressions, cartouches and curls of bizarre shapes, reminiscent of either sea waves or bizarrely twisted leaves. Naturally, everything inside was even more magnificent than outside.

Fortunately, time has spared enough Rococo interiors for us to appreciate them. The ceilings of the rooms were framed with stucco ornaments, their center was often filled with a picturesque ceiling, curls from the capitals of the columns “flowed” onto the ceiling, the walls were covered with stucco and paintings, covered with patterned silk or embossed leather, and decorated with many mirrors in gilded frames. More bizarre decorations also happened.

For example, the most convincing imitations of one material by another, or a sculpture built into or flowing into a painting so organically that only by touching one could understand where the plane ends and the volume begins.

These gilded, mirrored rooms were filled with doll furniture - brocade and satin sofas and armchairs on thin gilded legs, carved tables and consoles inlaid with rare wood, mother-of-pearl, and bronze plates. It seems that any piece of furniture, in addition to its main purpose, had a second, no less important purpose - to please the eye and delight.

New ideal

The women who lived in these houses were not like the magnificent beauties of Titian and Rubens. Strictly speaking, they didn’t look much like real women at all - there was so much artificiality in their image. Stretch into a glass-like corset, powdered to a papery whiteness, which was set off by satin and velvet flies, they resembled fragile porcelain figurines. Perhaps this new ideal was a kind of response to the last years of Louis XIV. During his long reign, the Sun King changed many favorites - from the former one of the first young and shy Mademoiselle de La Vallière (because of whom Dumas killed his son Athos) to the sternly highly moral Madame Maintenon, who reigned in his life for the last 30 years, under whom Versailles “became so sad that even the Calvinists would howl with anguish.” After the decline of the Sun King, the only living heir - his great-grandson Louis - was still small, and the power was temporarily assumed by the nephew of the late king - Duke Philippe of Orleans.

“According to the testimony of all historical records, nothing could compare with the free frivolity, madness and luxury of the French of that time, wrote A.S. Pushkin in his "Arap of Peter the Great". — The last years of the reign of Louis XIV, marked by the strict piety of the court, importance and decency, left no traces. The Duke of Orleans, combining many brilliant qualities with vices of all kinds, unfortunately, did not have even a shadow of hypocrisy. The orgies of the Palais Royal were not a secret for Paris: the example was infectious... Greed for money was combined with a thirst for pleasure and distraction; estates disappeared: morality perished; the French laughed and calculated, and the state fell apart to the playful choruses of satirical vaudevilles».

As a result of the Regency, the French court received the worst reputation in Europe - and regained the title of “trendsetter.” Having assumed power after the death of his uncle, Louis XV did not improve the reputation of the court at all - like the Duke of Orleans, he lived surrounded by many mistresses, permanent and momentary, and gave history the phrase “After us, even a flood”... But this is precisely what is very bad for country's reign and allowed the magical Rococo style to flourish.

Partly for this we have to thank the most famous of his favorites - Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, better known as the Marquise de Pompadour. She was hated by the people and loved by people of art, she ruined France and patronized writers and artists. She was also a real standard of a Rococo woman - petite, round-faced, with sloping shoulders and a thin waist.

Rococo style makeup

Unlike the 17th century, which valued women’s regular features, stateliness and curvaceous forms, the gallant century loved the immaturity of “teenage women”, smooth, pampered bodies that never knew either work or other effort, eternal youth - or at least its illusion . Ideal beauty, by the way, was not required - after all, any minor defect in appearance could be corrected with cosmetics, hairstyle or clothing. Both of them were powerful weapons.

Decorative cosmetics were used very generously at that time. To achieve a porcelain complexion, both men and women powdered themselves heavily, tinted their cheeks, temples and eyelids with rouge, lips with lipstick, eyes were outlined to emphasize their expressiveness, eyebrows were painted, hair was curled, combed and powdered until white. The radiance of the skin was enhanced by “flies” - fake moles cut from black velvet or taffeta. According to legend, they were invented in the 17th century by the Duchess of Newcastle, who did not have good skin. Having penetrated France, in a few years flies turned from a means of camouflage into the silent words of a “gallant language”: a pair of moles glued above the upper lip and on the left chest informed the gentleman that the path from the lips leads to the heart, a front sight between the temple and the eye spoke of passion of its mistress, carved in the shape of a crescent promised an evening date. However, a crescent moon, an asterisk or a heart were not the most bizarre shapes - sometimes flies were cut out in the shape of cupids, ships and carriages.

During the “reign of Rococo,” women's hairstyles changed in the most unexpected and bizarre ways. At the beginning of the 18th century, the fashion was for small, modestly decorated hair, powdered white and slightly curled, but by the 30s it had grown up and was decorated with curls falling over the shoulders and a chignon at the back.

The wife of Louis XVI, Marie-Atoinette, who had luxurious hair, became a real nurse for hairdressers - after all, after her, ladies came up with whiter and more fanciful ways to decorate their heads. The volume of your own hair was not enough for this, and a Parisian fashion magazine gave women the following advice: “ Every lady who wants to bring her hair into line with the latest tastes should purchase an elastic pad that exactly fits the size of her head. Having styled, powdered and pomaded your hair properly, you need to place a pillow under it and raise it to the desired height...” And it’s not surprising - after all, hairstyles went up half a meter or higher, so it was impossible to do without frames and supports. These hairstyles were decorated not only with flowers, ribbons and feathers, but with entire skillfully made dolls - for example, on the occasion of the birth of a son by the Duchess de Chartres, the famous coiffer and hatmaker Leonard Bolyar came up with a hairstyle for the young mother with a nurse holding a baby in her arms. The art of hairdressing responded to any event so sensitively that in 1774 a certain foreigner wrote: “ Daily news can be learned by looking at women's heads».

Of course, this fashion caused ridicule (the press of that time was full of caricatures of beauties with incredible hairstyles) and indignation among the “ladies of the old school,” but when were fashionistas interested in the opinions of mothers and grandmothers? Especially to combat them, the same Leonard Bolyar came up with a cap with an internal spring, which allowed the young lady to triple the size of her headdress as soon as she disappeared from the eyes of her relatives who did not approve of the new fashion.

Of course, the art of tailors did not keep up with hairdressing, but the fashion for dresses in the gallant age also changed quite often.

Although one thing remained unchanged - women dressed in Rococo dresses were supposed to look like charming dolls. In the fashion of this time there are no adjustments for growing up; clothes for teenage girls and ladies old enough to be their grandmothers are made not only with a similar cut, but also from the same fabrics.

Satin, silk, velvet, brocade, decorated with ribbons, bows, frills, embroidery - the multi-layered skirts of these dresses were lush, like a fully blossomed inverted rose, and became more and more magnificent every year. The width of these skirts was ensured by the whalebone flaps worn underneath them. By the way, thanks to this fashion, the use of whalebone increased so much that in 1772 the States General of the Netherlands allocated 600 thousand florins for the development of the Friesland whale catching society. It is clear that the beauty could not enter every door without turning sideways, but fashion designers finally turned on the engineering and invented folding figurines.

By the way, despite all the pomp, these dresses weren’t long at all, because then the ladies wouldn’t be able to show off their tiny legs and amazing shoes. Looking at portraits of the 18th century, you undoubtedly noticed how small the legs of the beauties of that time were. Of course, the artists flattered the models a little - but not too much. The fact is that the cut of the shoes of that time with the “French” glass heel really visually made the foot smaller. This was achieved due to the fact that the heel was strongly shifted towards the center of the shoe, leaving the heel hanging in the air.

These instruments of voluntary torture were made of leather, suede, satin, brocade and velvet. The heels of the shoes of noble ladies (four fingers high) were often covered with red leather. The decoration included small buckles, sometimes sprinkled with precious stones, bows, feathers, rosettes and artificial flowers... Walking in such shoes was uncomfortable and tiring - but beautiful. However, if you put together everything that you have already learned about Rococo fashion, the inconvenience of the shoes seems the least of the problems. And the fragility of his toy heroines will seem deceptive - after all, they had enough stamina to dance, intrigue, charm, write books and paintings and bear children in all of the above (including a tightly laced corset...

And then the gallant age ended in the most cruel and sad way - with a revolution that crushed charming ladies and their powdered gentlemen with its millstones, and at the same time gave birth to a new aesthetics - strict, practical, straightforward and boring. Charming gilded curls, mantles and powdered wigs, porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, Watteau's smooth painting and Fragonard's light brushstrokes - all this will be alien.

The Rococo era has long passed, but its echoes are still preserved. And these are not only works of art of that time, but also elements of fashion. Many people are still puzzling over how to do their hair in the rococo style or repeat their makeup. And it’s really not easy.

General provisions about Rococo hairstyles

Hairstyles of the Rococo era were distinguished by their intricacy. At first it was just hair pulled up and pulled up. But then they began to be made too tall, with a lot of decorations, which used flowers, feathers, ribbons, pearls... It was difficult to do something with your hair yourself, so each court lady had a personal or visiting master hairdresser.

Sometimes the hairstyle took so long and painfully to do that the woman then wore it for a week. She tried to walk and sleep very carefully so that every curl remained in its place. Sometimes a hat was woven right into the hair, which made the look even more whimsical. But this is exactly what the ladies wanted. Rococo hairstyles were a kind of standard of style.

Rococo today

Modern girls can’t even imagine how much work it took for the hairdressers to do their hair. After all, they had no mousse, no hairspray, no curling iron... Today, Rococo hairstyles are rarely used for everyday wear. More often they are made for fashion shows or theatrical performances. Wedding hairstyles in the Rococo style are also popular. There are no detailed step-by-step instructions for them, but there are basic principles that can be followed.

Don't skimp on hairspray. Secure every curl, every strand with it;
No bangs. If you have it, then you will have to style it in your hair, fixing it with hairspray;
All Rococo hairstyles are based on a high backcomb, so be prepared that the hair will be tangled after unbraiding;
Almost any hairstyle can be disguised as rococo thanks to accessories. Look for ideas on the Internet, study ancient portraits of court ladies and try making your own hairpin.

Bride in Rococo style

If you decide to recreate the atmosphere of this era at your wedding and choose the appropriate fluffy dress, then you need to style your hair in the style of that time. It is unlikely that you will be able to do this with your own hands, so most often brides turn to salons or their handy girlfriends. Let us present a step-by-step scheme for performing a hairstyle in the Rococo style.

You shouldn't recreate a giant hairstyle for a wedding. It will be inconvenient and difficult for the bride to do something like this at home. Therefore, as a sample, we will choose the option presented in the photo below. Modest, modern, but in the spirit of Rococo - with a backcomb and without bangs.

We take a large strand from the forehead and backcomb it;
We fix it with varnish and create volume. We pin the strand with bobby pins on the top of the head;
We collect the rest of the hair. The photo shows a smooth styling, but if desired, the hair can be pre-styled. If there are beautiful waves on the head, it will be closer to that era. Don’t forget to fix the curls with varnish;
We take small strands from the tail, curl them with a curling iron and secure them to the head using bobby pins and hairpins;
The resulting curls should be placed on the head so as to completely hide the elastic band holding the tail.

The more voluminous the bouffant is, and the higher you make the ponytail, the more your styling will look like rococo. If your hair is very thick, then you can do not a ponytail, but not all strands. You can decorate wedding hairstyles in the Rococo style in any way. It would be better if it were satin ribbons in the color of the wedding dress, flowers, various accessories, and feathers.

Video: Rococo style hairstyle options

XVIII century was the heyday of women's hairstyles and wigs. Never has the diversity of fashion and its “drama” been shown so clearly as in the Rococo era. Fashion constantly fluctuated between two extremes - from high to low hairstyles and vice versa. In the first half of the 18th century, women's hairstyles in France continued to remain bulky and ponderous. Basically they repeated the hairstyle silhouettes "a la Fontange" with minor changes. Soon the high hairstyle of 2 feet (62 cm) begins to fall and receives the name “Fontange-chest of drawers” - “comfortable”.

The wives of the bourgeoisie wore their hair more modestly: “a la Kulbit”, “a la Mouton”. In 1712, “fontange” became unfashionable and disappeared. King Louis XIV loses his former interest in fashion and completely submits to the influence of his latest favorite Madame Maintenon, a pious and modest woman who wears an absurd, flattened hairstyle, which received the caustic name "Humility". All court ladies had to comb their hair "a la Maintenon".

Since 1725 (at the court of Louis XV, small, graceful hairstyles that were heavily powdered came into fashion. These hairstyles were called “small powdered.” They were almost the same for men and women. The hair was curled in light curls, like a shell, and laid around the head in a wide with a wreath, leaving the back of the head smooth. The women's hairstyle had two more serpentine curls that went down onto the heavily low-cut chest. This was Countess Kossel, the favorite of the Elector of Saxony Augustus II, so the hairstyle was named after her.

Maria Leszczynska, Polish by origin, paid a lot of attention to her appearance and wardrobe. In 1725 she married Louis XV and did a lot for the development of fashion at the royal court. She improved Countess Kossel's hairstyle, decorated it with a feather and a brooch, and named her "Polonaise".

The court ladies and gentlemen “without age” looked like porcelain puppets not only with their immensely bleached faces and hair, dresses and camisoles made of silk in the most delicate shades, but also with the doll-like plasticity of memorized court etiquette, in which making a mistake was as irreparable as breaking a fashionable thin porcelain. But the refined grace of the small white heads did not reign for long. In the 1730s of the 18th century, a new hairstyle silhouette appeared, a not very elegant “egg-shaped” shape. The hair was fluffed and combed smoothly above the forehead. Two dense, tubular curls were laid from ear to ear through the crown, through the highest point of the hairstyle. A chignon, rather flat in shape, was attached to the back. Sometimes they made not curls, but curls, laid them parallel to each other in the same direction, and curled one or two curls near the ear and lowered them onto the shoulder. The hairstyle was always decorated with flowers, and the curl was decorated with pearls.

But by the middle of the century, hairstyles increased again, as did whalebone skirts. Jean de La Bruyère, the famous French moralist (who was the tutor of the Duke of Bourbon) irritably remarked: “Just as a fish must be measured without taking into account the head and tail, so a woman must be examined without paying attention to her hairstyle and shoes.” Hairstyle appears "Tape" - "Perm". Curled hair was driven in and placed high above the forehead in a cob of various variations. They began to wear hairstyles like “crown” and “diadem”. Torsad- (French - plait) either a braid or long curled strands were intertwined with ribbons and pearls and laid in the shape of these headdresses.

The accession to the throne of Louis XVI was marked by two things: an unprecedented increase in the national debt of France and the appearance of a new hairstyle "The Queen's Flowers", decorated with ears of grain and a cornucopia. This was the beginning of hairdressing madness. Very soon fashion will supplant the previous, more modest hairstyles of the early Rococo era. The queen herself sets the tone. In the 60s and 70s, hairstyles were already entire structures half a meter high, which were erected by skilled hairdressers. The work lasts for several hours. The Parisian “Courrier des Dames” gives fashionistas another piece of advice: “Every lady who wants to bring her hair into line with the latest tastes should purchase an elastic pad that exactly matches the size of her head. Having styled, powdered and pomaded your hair properly, you need to place a pillow under it and raise it to the desired height...” Competing with each other, the capital's coiffeurs invented not only hitherto unseen hairstyles, but also unheard-of names for them: “Zodiac”, “Stormy Waves”, “Hunter in the Bushes”, “Mad Dog”, “Duchess”, “Hermit”, “Cabbage”, “Musketeer”, “Garden”, “Angel’s Smile”, “Blooming Pleasantness”, “Lovely Simplicity”.

A very characteristic description of the hairstyles of the nobility is in Galina Serebryakova’s essays “Women of the French Revolution”: “Diane Polignac and Princess Lamballe vied with each other to tell Marie Antoinette vulgar palace gossip, while four hairdressers have been working on the royal hairstyle for the sixth hour in a row. The three hundred and second curl on the back of the head is persistently developing, and the sailing boat, hoisted on the churned spinner, threatens to fall off. The Queen got tired of covering her face with a paper shield, and the powder that was sprinkled in abundance on her hair stuck to her face in a white mass. In the corner of the boudoir, Madame Rose Bertin, the queen’s dressmaker, is bustling around, with the help of ten maids, laying out a ball gown made of the finest Chinese silk and Lyon velvet on a sofa woven with flowers.”

Bolyar is a fashion virtuoso.

The brilliant Leonard Authier, nicknamed Bolyar - “Magnificent”, was the court hairdresser and hatmaker of Her Majesty Marie Antoinette. “...The fashion virtuoso is sophisticated, cutesy, mannered, in a word, a real couturier, he fully corresponded to the type, numerous examples of which are well known to us. His contemporary, a poet, left lines of praise dedicated to Bolyar - the Archimedes of fashion, the magician who controls the client’s tastes in his luxurious store:

Bolyar, so many masterpieces, so brilliant,
With which you decorated your Fatherland,
Confirms your enormous talent.
You hold a precious rod,
What turned the French Empire
To the empire of happiness and extravaganza.

Bolyar presented the queen with a fragrant rose he had made, the core of which opened, revealing a miniature portrait of Her Majesty. This seemed very offensive to Rose Betren, who sought autocracy over her high-ranking clients and for a long time she refused to carry out the orders of Princess de Lamballe, the culprit of Bolyar’s acquaintance with Marie Antoinette.

Marie Antoinette's inner circle were also Bolyar's clients. Madame de Matignon, known for her daring antics (even on the day of her execution, she remained true to herself: she ascended the scaffold rouged and in a chic dress), concluded with great coufeur agreement: twenty-four thousand livres and he gives her a new hairstyle every day. These hairstyles were so high that “the ladies rode in their carriages on their knees or bent over to the limit. Their faces seem to be inserted into the middle of the body...”, as they wrote in 1775.

The hairstyle required a lot of hairpins, lipstick, and powder, so they tried to preserve it for as long as possible, without taking it apart for several days, or even weeks. While sleeping, ladies used special headrests that allowed them to hold their hair up. The same famous Leonard Bolyar was the first creator of hairstyles that were integral with the headdress. The creativity of the virtuoso hairdresser and the irrepressible imagination of the queen gave the world such masterpieces as “Explosion of Sensibility”, “Voluptuous”, “Secret Passion”. In comparison with the pale “sissy” or modest “butterfly” of the previous period, these were huge, complex hairstyles that were integral with the headdress. They reflected international events and advances in technology.

Hats, of course, existed independently. A whole trend in creating hats was invented by the famous maestro: "mood hats", - these were the names of fancy structures inscribed in the equally fancy hairstyles of sophisticated ladies. They were intended to express the secret thoughts and feelings of the person wearing such a hat. Butterflies hovered around the heads of frivolous ladies - a whole flock of messengers of love spoke of searching for or encouraging flirtation with a gentleman, sarcophagi and mourning urns spoke of melancholy because of lost love. For the Duchess of Chartres, who in 1775 gave birth to a son (the future Louis Philippe), Leonard came up with a hairstyle with a seated luxurious nurse holding the child in her arms. Small figures– trinkets have become a necessary means for creating the intended image. From now on, they had an independent life in the constant process of creating a costume. They allowed milliners and coiffeurs to embody any fantasies: political events, battles and victories, trials, theatrical successes, salon gossip - everything served as a pretext for creating new jewelry, decorating new models of hats and hairstyles.

A foreign traveler wrote in 1774: “Daily news can be learned by examining the heads of women.” The picture shows one of the masterpieces of Leonard Bolyar's hairdressing talent - a hairstyle "a la frigate" up to 35 cm high, dedicated to the victory of the French frigate "La Belle Poule" in 1778 over the British. One day a noble Englishwoman paid him a visit: “I am the admiral’s widow,” she said, “and I rely on your taste and imagination.” Two days later she received a “divine hat,” as Countess Ademarskaya wrote in her Memoirs: the crumpled gas acted as sea waves, a ship made of lace and jewelry floated on them, and a mourning flag fluttered at the match.

In general, between 1770 and 1780, with the light hand of Queen Marie Antoinette, who had luxurious hair, women's hairstyle began to rise upward - sometimes to a height of up to 70, and sometimes up to 100 cm. It turned out that other hairstyles were several times ( sometimes 8) larger than her mistress’s head. Master Leonard Bolyar came up with a “cap for mother”, in which a special spring was mounted. In the company of respectable matrons, the head of the young fashionista was covered with a respectable cap, but as soon as the dandy left this strict society, she set the spring in motion and her headdress tripled its height.
France has become a trendsetter in the field of hairstyles. From the name of the complex coiffure hairstyle, hairdressers began to be called coiffeurs. In Paris, the Academy of Hairdressing was created by the coiffeur of His Royal Highness Louis XV, Maitre Legros. False hair, chignons, tied with ribbons, decorated with feathers and flowers were literally “piled up” on the heads of women. Competing with each other, the cuafers invented and brought to life more and more new types of “artificiality”, trying to please all tastes, preferences, and also in accordance with political changes. The number of different hairstyles has constantly increased. In the book “Praise of Hairdressers Directed to Ladies,” 3,774 of them were listed, and only the revolution was able to completely destroy the fashion for wigs.

Hairstyles 1700-1780

In 1780, Master Bolyar came up with an elaborate hairstyle for Marie Antoinette, decorated with waves of chiffon, feathers and jewelry. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to make a frame. This support was braided with hair, masking iron or wooden rods. Dozens of hairpieces were used for such high hairstyles. They were fastened sequentially, in rows. The frames themselves, so as not to weigh them down, were filled with cambric handkerchiefs or very thin paper, but sometimes, after a visit to the hairdresser, the ladies were short of nightgowns - in a moment of inspiration, the master used everything that came to hand. They say that once Leonard Bolyar was combing Countess Razumovskaya’s hair, who wanted to show off her new hairstyle at the ball. As luck would have it, nothing was at hand: fruits, ribbons, jewelry - all this was already outdated. Looking around the room, he saw the count’s short, red velvet trousers, instantly cut them with scissors and built a huge pouf, with which he decorated his hair. This incredible construction was a huge success. Another time, he placed pigeon wings on the head of another ambitious lady. Still life of vegetables and fruits was the most ordinary option, except that in England it was called “Fruit Shop”, and in France - “English Garden”.
In the last years of the 18th century, with changes in costume, the hairstyle changed somewhat. She's getting shorter - hairstyle type "Princess Lamballe". Its shape is asymmetrical. Booklets are becoming unfashionable. Hair is curled and combed. Jewelry is used much less, and in the 80s, powder completely went out of fashion. White wigs are replaced with golden, red, chestnut ones. The blush disappears, but the white appears. A small wig with large curls and a flat chignon at the back of the head is coming into fashion - “Anfant” (French child) - this is the name of the hairstyle invented by Queen Marie Antoinette. The tall “coiffeurs” disappeared, all the ladies of the court wore small wigs with playful curls.

At the end of the reign of Louis XVI, English hairstyles, small and low, came into fashion. Since 1786 they began to wear hairstyle "Brush", in which a long loop of hair or ribbon was made at the back.

Papillots – Future curlers.

Not a single poet has sung admiringly about the “trap for a man’s heart” - women’s curls:

Emphasizing the languor of the gaze,
Where breasts and triumph are fused,
Two curls, like two shells
To catch the heart, you wear...

But no one has ever thought or said how prosaically these curls are created - with the help of nondescript paper coat, which were not even manufactured industrially. Each lady, before going to bed, independently wound a paper roll onto a ribbon and there you have it - a curl-paper. There were curling irons on sale, at the end of which there were concave indentations, like halves of nuts. The tongs were heated, the curler with a strand wound around it was placed in these recesses and heated. In the future, curlers, having changed their name, will turn into “curlers”.

Hair sellers.

The hair trade grew more and more, and French fashion was taking over Europe: going out into society “with your hair” became simply indecent! Louis XIV appoints 40 wig officers at the royal court, then a group of 200 people for all of Paris. At the end of the 18th century, everyone - aristocrats and bourgeois - wore false hair. Wig makers proudly call themselves “hair artists.” They work very carefully: after all, you need to select suitable hair, process it, comb it, train it and create a wig according to the requirements: according to measurements, size and desired length. In the market, the hair of young peasant women was valued higher than the locks of city women, while men's hair was not in demand at all. “Shavers” and “shearers” systematically walked around French villages and monasteries, trying to obtain goods of the highest possible quality first-hand. Red and light golden hair from Scotland were very popular. The golden hair of the Bretons was highly valued. Over time, the girls stopped voluntarily giving away their natural wealth. However, the “hair hunters” managed to deftly cut off the braids of young girls right in the church or in a public garden while walking. In this huge whirlpool, France occupied a very advantageous position: the export of “artificial hair” in 1865 brought it more than one million francs.

Between two extremes.

The beginning of the Rococo era had a penchant for everything miniature: small legs, graceful arms, a wasp waist, a small (at the beginning of the century) head with a small hairstyle, a doll's face with the doll's makeup of a porcelain figurine. Everything that needed to have a pleasant roundness was complemented with the help of thicknesses, which were commonly called “overlays”. The look should be languid, the lips capriciously pouting, dimples and flies are a mandatory attribute of makeup (I won’t write separately about flies - there are a lot of variations on this theme on the Internet). A coquettishly cutesy smile is the main weapon at the ball. The beginning of the 18th century saw a general craze for blush, which was generously applied to a face already covered with white. And not only the cheeks, but also around the lips, temples and eye area were decorated with quite dark, brownish blush. The era of the reign of the Regent, who had a special weakness for late libations and hearty dinners, not without reason made it the main decorative paint - blush. The courtiers, who were required to attend these receptions, were tired to the point of exhaustion. Whitewash, and especially the blush hid signs of fatigue. Everyone, men and women, applied a thick layer of blush to their faces, paying special attention to the lower eyelids. It was believed that this gives a special fire to the look. And yet, the ladies’ love for powder and blush was completely justified; the colors rejuvenated the face and made the eyes shine, especially with the mysterious flickering of candles. Therefore, women of fashion felt young and attractive, danced at balls and masquerades into old age, flirted and indulged in the passions of love. The bourgeois also began to blush their cheeks, adopting the fashion from the aristocrats, but they did it less brightly and applied the paint only to the cheeks.

By the end of the 50s of the 18th century, changes began to be felt and the passion for artificiality gradually faded away. Society refuses overly bright colors and leans more towards naturalness.

Marie Antoinette, who brought from Austria the traditional love of body hygiene, had the strongest influence on high society. “...Every day she took a bath, to which was added a mixture of peeled sweet almonds, pine nuts, flaxseeds, marshmallow root and lily bulbs. Instead of a washcloth, the future queen used a small bag of bran. Marie Antoinette also demanded impeccable hygiene from her courtiers, so soon her entourage began to be jokingly called the “perfume court.” The new hygiene standards brought by Marie Antoinette from Austria initially caused misunderstanding and mistrust at court, but gradually people got used to them and water procedures became the norm...”

She loved flowers very much and at the end of her life she called them her true passion. One day, the queen asked her court perfumer to create a fragrance that would absorb the entire atmosphere of the Little Trianon she adored. After studying the style of Marie Antoinette, the palette of Jean-Louis Fergen and the National Archives of France, Elisabeth de Fedo announced that she knew the formula for the royal perfume. The result of her and the work of the perfume company Quest International was the perfume M.A. Sillage de la Reine is a delicate bouquet of roses, iris, jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom, favorably shaded by notes of cedar and sandalwood and turning into a “base” of bamboo musk and ambergris.

Portrait painter Vigée-Lebrun, the queen's favorite artist, immortalized the disappearance of bright blush from the faces of the ladies of the court. Now high-society pallor is coming into fashion, but without the help of whitewash. The body gets used to taking baths, moderation in food becomes the norm, which returns natural colors to the face and completely changes its facial expressions; a dreamy expression with a sincere and light smile on a sweet face - this is the standard of female beauty, the requirements for which will be further strengthened by the proclamation of the principles of universal equality.

The philosophy of the Rococo style was determined by women. “Women reigned,” said Pushkin about the time when Rococo was just dawning. Rococo considers the main things in life to be celebration, refined pleasure and love. Acting, the “art of appearing” in life, has reached such perfection in this century that the theater with its conventions on stage has faded.

Throughout the 18th century. sensuality and sophistication will determine the style of women's aristocratic clothing. In fashion, a thin figure, a flexible waist, soft rounded hips, a small head, small high breasts, small arms, a thin neck, narrow shoulders - the woman resembled an elegant porcelain figurine.

All aristocrats, be it the luxurious Marquise de Pompadour or the virtuous Maria Theresa, with the light hand of the Duchess of Shrewsbury, wore moderately fluffy skirts with a frame and a small, modest, lightly powdered hairstyle, decorated with bouquets or lace hairpieces.

Marquise de Pompadour

Austrian Empress Maria Theresa

The fullness of the skirt was in harmony with the hairstyle and was relatively small

However, with the appearance of Marie Antoinette on the historical stage, paniers (in Russia - figmas) gradually acquired simply terrifying proportions. By 1725, they reached 7 or more feet in diameter, as a result of which the round pannier was replaced by double figs, when two half-dome shapes (for each hip separately) were fastened with braid at the waist.

Pannier skirt with elbows

This gondola pannier skirt (flat front and back)

However, the width of such a skirt created a lot of inconvenience for its owner... in particular, it was impossible to get into the carriage or walk through the door. French tailors soon improved this model, offering an ingenious design, albeit quite complex: a metal pannier, the individual parts of which were hinged and movable. They were controlled using ribbons released through small slits onto the surface of the skirt.

As the width of the skirt increased, so did the height of women's hairstyles. It all started modestly...:-)

However, already in the 70s, hairstyles were entire structures with a height of 50 to 100 cm, the construction of which was carried out by skilled hairdressers for several hours.

The era of hairdressing madness has arrived, marked by the appearance of the Queen's Flowers hairstyle, decorated with ears of grain and a cornucopia.

Competing with each other, the capital's coiffeurs invented not only hitherto unseen hairstyles, but also unheard-of names for them: “Zodiac”, “Stormy Waves”, “Hunter in the Bushes”, “Mad Dog”, “Duchess”, “Hermit”, “Cabbage”, “Musketeer”, “Garden”, “Angel’s Smile”, “Blooming Pleasantness”, “Lovely Simplicity”.

The creativity of the virtuoso hairdresser and hatter Leonard Authier, nicknamed Bolyar - “The Magnificent” and the irrepressible imagination of Queen Marie Antoinette gave the world such masterpieces as “An Explosion of Sensibility”, “Voluptuous”, “Secret Passion”. In comparison with the pale “sissy” or modest “butterfly” of the previous period, these were huge, complex hairstyles that were integral with the headdress. They reflected international events and advances in technology.

Headdresses, of course, existed independently. A whole trend in the creation of hats was invented by the famous maestro: “mood hats” - that was the name of the fancy structures, inscribed in the equally fancy hairstyles of sophisticated ladies. They were intended to express the secret thoughts and feelings of the person wearing such a hat.

Convenience, grace and beauty were sacrificed to Her Majesty Fashion. Despite the obvious inconveniences of such hairstyles, ladies slept with their heads on special stands; special frames were put on their heads and this support was braided with hair, masking iron or wooden rods. Dozens of chignons, pins, lipstick and powder were used for such high hairstyles - coiffeurs invented and brought to life more and more new types of “artificiality”, trying to please all tastes, preferences, and also in accordance with political changes. The number of different hairstyles has constantly increased. The book “Praise of Hairdressers Directed to Ladies” listed 3,774 of them.