The Victorian Era

What Is Victorian Hair Jewellery?

Article · Fashion & Dress · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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Victorian hair jewellery, also known as hair work, was a unique and intimate form of jewellery in which the hair of a loved one, often a deceased relative, a deceased friend, a lover, a child, or a parent, was worked into a piece of jewellery, often a brooch, a ring, a bracelet, a necklace, a watch chain, a fob, an earring, a locket, a pendant, or a charm. Hair jewellery became fashionable after the death of Prince Albert in 1861 and the long mourning of Queen Victoria, which fixed the cult of the memento in the popular imagination. Hair jewellery was a major industry in the Victorian period, and it was produced by both amateur and professional hair workers, with the great hair jewellers of the period producing elaborate and beautiful pieces. The history of hair jewellery is examined in Victorian Accessories and Jewelry, and the parallel history of mourning jewellery is examined in What were Victorian mourning brooches?.

The Origins of Hair Jewellery

Hair jewellery had its origins in the eighteenth century, and the fashion grew in the nineteenth century. The hair of a loved one, particularly the hair of a deceased relative or friend, was seen as a tangible reminder of the person, and the hair was worked into a piece of jewellery that could be worn or carried. The hair was also seen as a symbol of love, of fidelity, of remembrance, and of mourning, and the hair was often combined with other materials, including gold, silver, gutta-percha, jet, pinchbeck, and enamel.

The fashion for hair jewellery grew in the early Victorian period and reached its greatest extent in the mid and late Victorian decades, when hair work became a substantial industry. Patterns and instructions for hair work were published in the ladies’ magazines of the period, and pieces were produced both at home by amateurs and commercially by professional hair workers and jewellers. The trade was particularly strong in the United States, and several specialist firms exported pieces to Britain and the Continent.

The Forms of Hair Jewellery

The forms of Victorian hair jewellery were many and varied. The most common form was the hair brooch, often circular or oval, and frequently decorated with the sentimental and funerary motifs of the period: hearts, doves, crosses, anchors, forget-me-nots, weeping willows, and urns. The brooch was set with a lock of the hair of the deceased or the beloved, sometimes accompanied by a miniature portrait or an engraved inscription.

Other common forms included the hair ring, in which a plaited band of hair was set under glass or within a gold mount, and the hair bracelet, necklace, earring, and locket. Watch chains woven entirely from hair were a popular gift from a wife or sweetheart, and lockets allowed a curl of hair to be carried close to the body.

The Techniques of Hair Jewellery

The techniques of Victorian hair work were skilled and laborious. The hair was first sorted, washed, and dried, and it was then curled, plaited, twisted, or woven into the desired form. In palette work, flattened strands of hair were arranged into pictures — flowers, leaves, wreaths, landscapes, or initials — and mounted under glass in a brooch, locket, or pendant.

In table work, long strands of hair were weighted with bobbins and woven around a central mould on a circular work table, producing the hollow ropes and tubes used for bracelets, watch chains, and necklaces. Hair could also be coiled into openwork patterns or worked over wooden forms to make beads, which were then strung or mounted in gold fittings. The craft was a particular accomplishment of the Victorian parlour, and instruction in hair work was a regular feature of the ladies’ magazines.

The Use of Hair Jewellery

Hair jewellery was worn by both men and women. A widow might wear a hair brooch throughout her mourning, a gentleman might wear a watch chain woven from the hair of his wife, and lovers exchanged rings and lockets containing each other’s hair. Although hair work is now associated chiefly with mourning, much of it was sentimental rather than funerary, and it was worn as a token of affection at ordinary social occasions, pinned to the dress, the bodice, the collar, or the shawl.

The most famous advocate of the memento was Queen Victoria herself, who wore jewellery containing Albert’s hair for the rest of her widowhood, and whose example did more than any other to fix the fashion in the popular mind. A small devotional industry grew up around her mourning, and the most accomplished hair workers of the period sold their wares to the great houses of Britain, the Continent, and the United States.

The Decline of Hair Jewellery

Hair jewellery declined in the late Victorian period and the Edwardian period, as the fashion for elaborate mourning dress and elaborate mourning jewellery gradually waned, and as the photograph replaced the lock of hair as the favoured memento of the absent and the dead. Surviving pieces are now collected as poignant documents of Victorian sentiment, and a small number of craft workers still practise the old techniques.