History of the toupée

A toupée is a small hairpiece worn to cover a bald spot, as distinct from a full wig, which covers the whole head. The distinction is mostly one of ambition. Both belong to one of humanity’s oldest traditions: the strategic relocation of hair from somewhere it grows to somewhere it does not.^{[citation needed]}

Egypt: shave it off, then put it back

The earliest known wigs come from ancient Egypt, where they appear by roughly 3400 BC. The Egyptian approach was gloriously counterintuitive: shave the head bald to stay cool and to deny lice a home, then wear an elaborate wig of human hair (and sometimes plant fibre), fixed with beeswax and resin, on top of the now-bald head.

Wigs signalled status and protected shaved scalps from a punishing sun. The wealthy owned several; the very wealthy were buried with them. It is the first clear evidence that humans will go to almost any length to control how much hair other humans think they have.

Greece, Rome, and the imperial comb-over

The Greeks and Romans wore hairpieces too. Roman fashion prized blonde and red hair, much of it cut from captives in the northern provinces and shipped south, which made a full head of fashionable hair a literal trophy.

Roman baldness was a sensitive subject at the highest level. Julius Caesar was famously self-conscious about his thinning hair, and ancient sources report he combed it forward and welcomed any excuse to wear his laurel wreath — arguably history’s most prestigious comb-over.

The age of the big wig

Wigs reached absurd heights — sometimes literally — in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. When King Louis XIII of France went prematurely bald, he took to wigs, and the court followed, because the court always followed. By the reign of Louis XIV the periwig was an architectural event: towering, curled, powdered, and expensive enough that the phrase “big wig” still means an important person.

Powder kept wigs pale and helped with the smell; the powder, in turn, helped popularise the hair-powder tax. Fashion is rarely free.^{[citation needed]}

The modern hairpiece

As powdered wigs fell out of everyday fashion in the 19th century, the discreet toupée took over the job of concealment. The twentieth century industrialised it — machine-wefted hair, nylon fibre, adhesive tapes, and clip systems — and gave it a reputation for being spotted at exactly the wrong moment.

The toupée’s modern rival is not the wig but the hair transplant. Still, after five thousand years, the basic idea is unchanged: if the hair will not grow where you want it, bring some along.

See also

• The comb-over, the toupée’s commitment-free cousin
• Do hair and nails grow after death?
• Powdered wigs and the wig tax