Guest post: What your wig says about you

23 Oct 2014

On 13 November, we'll be taking an irreverent tour of Georgian London in our Clocking Off LATE, in association with Time Out. As well as our LATE regulars such as Curators on the gangplank and our nautical-but-nice pub quiz, we'll be running Subversive Wiggery workshops where you can make your own wig. But in 18th century London, what did your wig say about you? Our Curator of Decorative Arts and Material Culture, Amy Miller, finds out in a tour of Ships, Clocks & Stars The 1770s may have marked the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ but fashion for men was potentially fraught in the latter part of the century.  If your clothing was too conservative you were danger of being called a ‘square-toes’ after the heavy shoes with squared toe that went out in the 1740s.  If you chose gorgeously hued silks with finely worked embroidery you were branded a ‘macaroni’ after the young men who had been on the Grand Tour and adopted very tightly fitted bright clothing with enormous wigs, buttons and shoe buckles. Eighteenth century fashion was not about the right haircut, but rather the right wig.    Naval officers were not immune to the lure of fashion, and some managed to tread the fine line between ridiculous excess and a man of fashion who could still command a ship.  What you chose had a lot to say about the image you wanted to project. Looking at some of the portraits included in Ships, Clocks and Stars tells us a great deal about the personalities involved in the search for longitude. Surprisingly, James Cook, shown here in the dress uniform for a Captain, is the consummate man of fashion.  His uniform is well cut and follows regulation, but his waistcoat is not buttoned as regulations dictate, instead he has personalised it, with a look a ‘careless informality’ a trend that was coming into fashion at this time, as dress became less stiff and formal.  His wig, a tie-back with a single curl above the ears is on trend for 1775-6 when he sat for Nathaniel Dance.   When this miniature was painted in 1801, Nevil Maskelyne had already been Astronomer Royal for over thirty years.  In the early nineteenth century wigs were superceded by a preference for wearing natural hair.  Styles looked to the ancient world for inspiration, particularly the Roman emperors, with one cropped hairstyle called ‘chevelure a la Titus.’ Wigs were still worn for formal functions and they were a symbol of rank and status.  In his portrait miniature, Nevil Maskelyne is shown in his Reverend’s robes and his wig which has a double curl above the ears.  While Maskelyne may not have been a fashion plate, he did create a garment that was a rare combination of quirky and practical. His ‘observing suit’ was a padded ‘onesie’ made to keep him warm during cold, clear nights required for observing the stars.  His choice of brightly stripped red and gold silk to cover a garment that no one, aside from immediate family and his assistant, would see indicates a man who appreciates the exuberance of fashion. Our last look brings us to John Harrison, the clockmaker who eventually came closest to receiving the 'great reward' for finding longitude through extraordinary mechanical insight, talent and determination. His portrait of about 1767, in the collection of the Science Museum, shows him seated, proudly holding his marine timekeeper. It also shows a man with a full bottomed wig, which had fallen out of fashion in the first half of the eighteenth century.  He is dressed in an extremely plain, sober brown woollen suit -- a man who is not concerned with the frivolities of fashion, but sticks with a staid, conservative and rather sober style of an earlier period.  He certainly would have been dubbed a ‘square-toes.’ To make your own 18th century wig, join us for Subversive Wiggery workshops as part of our Clocking Off LATE on Thursday 13 November.