man have been using hair to create jewelry and artwork for thousands of years . The recitation proceed back at least as far as ancient Egypt , whentomb paintings showpharaohs and their consorts exchanging hair orb as sexual love tokens . But the exercise of turn hair into art reach its zenith during the Victorian era , when locks were clipped from the living to create tokens of esteem and philia , or nip off from the dead to make memento . During the Victorian geological era both men and women jade hair jewelry , which often came in the form of complicated braiding fashion into pin , rings , necklace , bracelets , watch chains , and more . There were hair chaplet and hairsbreadth paintings , and even hair sculptures ; gold , jet , enamel , and germ pearls often embellish the hair to tot up further ornamentation . Often , hairsbreadth came from a beloved family member or friend , but there was also a palmy trade in imported hair from strangers — the longer , finer , and more outstandingly colored the right . ( Historic New Englandand theMassachusetts Historical Societyhave some great examples in their collections and online . )
The Victorian fascination with hair was part of that earned run average ’s preoccupation with death , an ever - present threat in the day when mortality rate rate were high . JewelerKaren Bachmann , a professor of Art & Design at the Pratt Institute who teaches how - to classes on hairwork at Brooklyn’sMorbid Anatomy Museum , explain that the making of hair into mementos was a way Victorians coped with loss . " What worry me about hairwork is the concept of human anatomical relic as a stand - in for the entire person , " she tell . " Just as mass have idolise parts ( bones , etc . ) of holy person , the Victorians prevail on to leftover of their have sex ones by retaining pieces of their pilus . In this direction , the wearer could keep their loved one close — literally and metaphorically . "
Today , there are still a few places where you’re able to see straight-laced hairwork on display , and an assortment of other situation where history and culture are thread up with famous and not - so - far-famed plait :
1. Leila’s Hair Museum // Independence, Missouri
For a crash grade in prudish pilus work , visit Leila ’s Hair Museum . The inspiration of styler Leila Cohoon , the museum includes a collection of more than 600 tomentum chaplet and 2,000 slice of jewelry made with human fuzz , let in bracelets , necklace , earring , hat pins , manacle radio link , buttons , and more . Cohoon saysshe start collect hairwork in 1956 , after fall in love with a lowly gold - framed hair wreath at a Kansas City , Missouri antiques bargainer ’s . She has n’t looked back , and impart to her ever - farm solicitation by drawing on service department and acres sale , auctions , personal connections , and donation . The first looping of Leila ’s Hair Museum open up in 1986 in the front of her cosmetology schooltime , and displace to its current location in January 2005 . Cohoon even gives classes on how to make straightlaced - mode hairwork yourself , and read she ’s reverse - engineer 30 techniques the Victorians once used ( she ’s still puzzle out on another five ) .
2. Avanos Hair Museum // Goreme, Turkey
This may the world ’s only pottery heart / guest house / hair museum . In a cave . AsAtlas Obscuranotes , " name it a museum may be a bit of a stretch , " but it ’s sure a singular raft — an estimated 16,000 locks of hair dangle from the ceiling and walls , the one-time purportedly hang in 1979 . The tendrils vary in color and sizing , but are all order to come from the heads of distaff visitors . Supposedly , a local ceramist depart the place when a near friend was saying bye-bye and the thrower asked for a souvenir to remember her by . The friend trim down off a slice of her hairsbreadth , which the potter stop up display in his clayware shop . He told the account to visitors , some of whom were move to duplicate the woman ’s generosity , and the collection took off .
3. Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum has an excellent ingathering of tomentum jewelry , much of it stored in a cabinet on the mezzanine level of Room 91 . Highlights include afantastic diamond - and - pink sapphirebroach with a locket of blond plait haircloth , abeautiful broochmade to immortalise the dying of a 16 - year - old who expire in 1842 , and a seventeenth - centuryring with an enameled skeletonon a background of haircloth , made in memory of a child known only by the initials “ I.C. ”
4. John Reznikoff’s Collection
Collector John Reznikoff ’s assortment of celebrity hair is n’t usually open to the world — unless the public happens to be a buyer with some seriously deep pockets . Among the strands plucked from George Washington , Beethoven , Napoleon , and John Dillinger is a clump of hair aver to come up from Abraham Lincoln after his character assassination , and still bear bits of his mentality matter . Reznikoff calculate that the clustering , kept in a special gold - and - glass case , isworth about $ 750,000 . Not all the samples get the gold boxful discourse , however ; most lie inside a filing cabinet , in unvarnished envelopes alongside certification leaven their origins .
Reznikoff buys from auction bridge house , small dealers , and the " occasional nanna , " accordingtoThe New York Times , but stopped buy haircloth from living celebrities after a batch with Neil Armstrong ’s barber led the former astronaut to sue . However , there ’s still plenty of business where utter fame are concerned — in 2008 , Reznikoff sell a choice of Beethoven ’s hair to a company that twist it into a synthetical diamond , which finally sold for $ 202,000 on eBay .
5. The Japan Hair Museum // Kyoto
Hair , fashion , and chronicle go hand - in - hand — think of the flapper ' bobs or 1960s beehive . AtKyoto ’s Japan Hair Museum , also known as the Japanese Coiffure Museum , 115 hairpieces leave a history of Japan through its many hairstyles , from the distant yesteryear to the Cartesian product - obsessed present . century of hair ornamentation and combs are also on display , although if hairsbreadth accoutrement are more your thing , there ’s a museum for that too : The museum ofTraditional Japanese Hair Ornamentsin Tokyo .
6. Bangsbo Museum // Frederikshavn, Denmark
Hairwork has cryptic roots in Scandinavia , where poor harvests in the nineteenth century encourage the ascension of a cottage industry in pilus artwork and jewellery made by country women . live in Sweden ashårkullor , or " whisker ladies,“these adult female would often travel Europe create tomentum - based handicrafts and sending the funds back home to help keep their villages afloat . They created all kind of jewelry — brooches , ring , and look on mountain chain — using hair provide ( usually ) by the customer . Men wore the hair of their wives fashioned into intricately braided lookout chain , while women opted for necklaces , ring , and other adornments made from their husbands ' tresses . Today , theBangsbo Museumdisplayshårkullorhandicrafts in a permanent exposition that mould Northern Europe ’s largest assemblage of hair art . you could see necklaces , rings , wreaths , brass , and most bizarrely , a span of very hairy mitten .
7. John Varden’s Cabinets
In the former 1850s , John Varden was working for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science at the US Patent Office when he began collecting locks of hair for a display he would subsequently call " Hair of Persons of Distinction . " The curious framed collecting include low snippets from the head ( presumptively ) of inventor Samuel Morse , sculptor Clark Mills , General Sam Houston , and Senators Henry Clay and Jefferson Davis , among other notables . Varden later on created a second , as gravid presentation featuring the hair of chair from George Washington to Franklin Pierce . Both displays once belonged to the Patent Office , but now reside at theSmithsonian ’s National Museum of American History . The first cabinet is illustrious for preserve Varden ’s appeal : “ Those have hair of Distinguished Persons , will confere [ sic ] a Favor by adding to this Collection . "
8. Myrans Hemslöjd // Vamhus, Sweden
Vamhus , Sweden may be the only place left in Europe with a roaring hairwork community . In the nineteenth hundred , village cleaning woman made hundreds of trips around Europe to learn and perform the craft , and it never quite die out . If you spare up your strands ( and your pennies ) , you’re able to govern your own hairwork brooches , earring , bracelets , necklaces , or watch chainshere . you may see hairwork on display atMyrans Hemslöjd , a local handicraft computer memory that is keep the custom animated .
