After waking up with something resembling curls this morning – damp hair twisted into buns on top of my hair had that effect – I decided to try a new hairstyle. ‘New’ might not actually be the right term as it was inspired by the turn-of-the-previous-century styles. What extensive Pinteresting and YouTubing in the past has taught me is that you need a hair rat. That rat can then give you the kind of extra volume around the crown of your head that is needed for the look. I did not own a hair rat, so I set of to make one.
In came my stash of old pantyhose and tights where I grabbed a black one. Since my hair is dark brown with grey, I figured black would be easiest to camouflage with the hair I have. I used about 70 cm of a tights leg, stuffed it and sewed the ends together. This turned out way too big, my hair could not cover that amount of tight. So I wandered over to the treadle and zigzagged a seam about 4.5 cm from the edge. Turned it right side out and started stuffing it again. This attempt was better, but because I have bangs, there is much less hair at the front of my head and the coverage was scarce at best. So I took out almost all the stuffing, just leaving the ‘seam allowance’ (i.e. half the width of a tights leg) of the front 12 cm section. This worked wonderfully well.
I walked around with the tights on my head for most of the day, taking a sweater off too a couple of times. Edwardians seem to love the messy look, so that wasn’t a problem. For the majority of the day, there was just a hair tie on the bun and nothing else. After a while, I added a few pins to the back of my head to keep some strays up. Is it historically accurate? I doubt it with polyfill innards. Does it get the job done? Yes it does, especially when you would add a hat. All in all, a successful spur of the moment project!
