18th C Styled Wig – …out of a portrait

The Dog Ear was one of the variations of the Cadogan style, having very long hair in the back then folded it up to form a loop has always intrigued me. It seemed to be popular in the 1780s and 90s. There are several illustrations in “The Mode of Hats and Headdresses” by Ruth Turner Wilcox, here are two.

When I needed to take some pictures of a turban inspired headdress, I chose to style a wig the “Dog Ear” style.

The headdress I made was very loosely based on this headdress. Except I chose to create an edging that is different than in this portrait of Marie Antoinette by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in the New Orleans Museum of Art. Museum purchase, Women’s Volunteer Committee and Carrie Heiderich Funds

I started with a synthetic full bottom wig in the style of a Charles II, 17th C men’s wig. It was total curls with the hair in the front half being about 6″ long then in the rows going back it got longer every few weft rows. The very bottom rows the hair was about 30″ long. an inch or so above that it was some 25″ long then another inch above that some 19″ long. It keep getting shorter towards the top of the crown.

Because the wig has three different lengths of hair at the bottom I decided to do a triple fold up (dog ears). Corset and chemise made by Deborah Borlace. The model is Laurie Hall.

The first thing I did was to comb out the 6″ curls in the front. To divide them up into smaller ringlets.

Then, separated the long hair 19″ and longer into the three separate ponytails at the base of the neck using clear rubber bands (on left). Because the wig is synthetic to get the hair to be totally straight, I steamed each section while holding onto it at the base as it cooled (on right). Note: I pre-straighten all the lower hair before separating it into the sections.

I added another rubber band on each bundle 6″ from the free end.

I tied the three bundles at the upper rubber bands together with a ribbon and added another rubber band to hold the bundles together at the lower rubber bands.

I added another ribbon to cover the rubber bands, this one long enough to make a bow and slipped a large hair pin under the ribbon and the rubber bands.

To make sure this could anchor the dog ear really well I bent back one end of the hair pin back to form a sort of fish hook.

When the wig is in place and anchored the pin can be pinched and slipped into the wig base between the two center curls at the back of the head.

Then I had to deal with all the hair between the front short hair and the long hair at the base. I decided to separate that into sections and create vertical rolls and pin them to the wig base.

This can be done by rolling the hair onto a cold curling iron the diameter of the curls you want.Because the hair in this section of the wig is long I start with the curling iron clamped in the middle then, wrap the loose end of the section around the iron.

I then continued rolling the iron towards the head until I got to the wig cap.

When there I carefully slipped the iron out of the curl,

slipped my finger into the curl until I could add a color matched bobby pin in from the top to hold the curl then, slipped out my finger and added another bobby pin into the bottom of the curl.

I’m working here with the last 5 rows of weft before the long hair for the dog ear, I curled the hairs on the left side of the wig clockwise after I reached the center back I started curling it counter clockwise (last curl in the row). After the bottom row of curls was done I had to do two more similar rows of curls to reach the top of the head.

Below is a gallery showing how Laurie put the wig on, added the hat and the plume to create the finished look.