Simple Styles for Dickens Faire?

[meichigo]

I'm going to be working Dark Garden's booth at San Francisco's Dickens Faire this year. (Dark Garden is a world renowned corsetiere.) I've never really been involved in a period event like this before (though I've been to Ren Faire once or twice - who hasn't? But hair was simpler then.) Does anyone have any good suggestions for styles I can throw together for while I'm working?

My hair is... I've forgotten all the acronyms, but right now it's longer than tailbone but shorter than classic. Perfectly straight, medium thickness, a few layers & bangs at the front.

Someone at the shop suggested that I just do a bunch of braids and then pin them around the top of my head with a myriad of bobby pins.

Thanks in advance!

[RoseRedDead]

Elizabethan hair-taping?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqbAdvL8kME

I've never done it - my hair isn't long enough - but it would look good, and is supposed to hold like a rock!

[meichigo]

I think that'd be a couple centuries too early, unfortunately. I thought about doing a Gibson tuck but I know it's a few decades off in the other direction.

[Quixii]

I always just leave my hair down for things like those. And get tons of compliments, too. :D

[Fractalsofhair]

What about a bun on the top of your head, smoothed out on the sides?
http://homepages.waymark.net/~bikechic/manyaCb&w.jpg
Like so? I'm not sure how to do it though.

[GlennaGirl]

Well, Dickens died around 1870, right? So that would be right after the American Civil War. Although what you're looking for is English style, styles tended to carry over across the pond one way or another. So the Civil War "wings" on the side low over the ears and then ending in a bun would probably be perfect.

Or to take it a hair (yar! har!) earlier into Dickens' heyday, how about very tight spiral ringlets? ETA: How about something like this (http://media.photobucket.com/image/victorian%20hair/shadows_we_are/victorian-hair-styles-3.jpg)? A couple or a few very long tight ringlets and a bun rising above? The bun itself wouldn't have to be complex at all; the do would look gorgeous just with most of it up and the romantic spirals spilling down.

[GlennaGirl]

Here are Google image search results (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=victorian%20hairstyles&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)for Victorian Hairstyles. For Dickens you'd be looking more toward the beginning to the middle of the era.

[LittleOrca]

I watched some films that were supposed to be set in Dickens' time and I saw a lot of ringlets and even a few gibson pompadours (http://www.rapunzelsdelight.com/images/sty/img70.jpg). They might look good with your corsets.

[Jannike]

Usually Dickens faires center around the 1850-60's and the hairstyles around these years for women were often a low bun in the nape of the neck (for the 60's) and a bun a bit higher up for the 50's. The bun is usually braided or just wrapped lika a cinnamon bun.
Early in this period the hair on the sides were laid outside of the ears (usually with the help of hair rats, potato sized pillows made by your own dead hair, usually taken from a brush). The side hair could also be braided to frame the face. You can also "roll" the front hair backwards/inwards to the nape of the hair and the put this twist around the bun. The ends of the front hair are usually wrapped around or tucked under the bun in the back.
There are really nice places with info for this so I'm posting some links here.
http://www.thegracefullady.com/civilwargowns/images/cdvs/daydresses/lady_lovelyhair_dress2.jpg
Here's a woman with braids in the sides of the hair.

http://www.thegracefullady.com/civilwargowns/cdvs_daydresses.htm
Here's lots of photos of women from this era wearing typical hairstyles. It's to bad you can't see the backs but they are often some kind of low bun. Sometimes decorated with a vertical tortoiseshell or horn comb.

http://thesewingacademy.org/index.php?topic=191.0
Here's a link to a great hair thread. You can also see pictures of the braiding of the side hair a bit down on this page.

I also want to say that long hair are great for doing these period updos and they would look so great on you. And I don't think they would be so hard to do. You can also search for other hair threads in the forum in the last link. People there are very helpful and they have vast amounts of knowledge from this period in history.

[rusika1]

You can try to find paintings or photographs of women from the mid-19th century--Queen Victoria and her progeny are obvious choices, but I'd suggest googling for images of other notable women. Authors are the easiest to come up with--Louisa May Alcott, George Sand, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti are all from the 50's-60's. The Bronte sisters are a little too early.

Or wear a snood, as wikipedia says
Snoods came back into fashion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion) in the 1860s, though the term "snood" remained a European name, and Americans called the item simply a "hairnet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairnet)" until some time after they went out of fashion in the 1870s. These hairnets were frequently made of very fine material to match the wearer's natural hair color (see 1860s in fashion - hairstyles and headgear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860s_in_fashion#Hairstyles_and_headgear)) and worn over styled hair. Consequently, they were very different from the snoods of the 1940s.

here's an era-appropriate example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Friedrich_Erdmann_von_Menzel_cropped.JP G


Also, Victorian hair toy alert! scroll down about two-thirds of the page:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/JewelryHistory/themes/Female_Adornment.htm#female9