Women's Edwardian Hairstyles: An Overview - Hair & Makeup Artist Handbook (2024)

The Edwardian era started with the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward.

King Edward VII was an affable, good-natured and diplomatic man. He reigned with Queen Alexander by his side, until he died in 1910.

Women’s fashion in Britain and America was mainly influenced by Paris. Therefore, women in both countries had very similar hairstyles. Paris also influenced hair accessories.

The latest trends were reported in publications such as The Queen(a London newspaper for ladies),The Delineator (for American women) and Ladies Home Journal. They were also full of advertisem*nts for all sorts of hair treatments, hairdresser services and accessories.

Ah, the fictional Gibson Girl! Created by American illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, she was particularly popular in the USA.

The perky Gibson Girl was the epitome of the feminine ideal. For one thing, she was tall and slender, yet curvy with an hourglass figure.Her hair was piled high on her head in the softly swirled pompadour style of the day.

The Gibson Girl represented the ideal beauty in America for nearly 20 years and influenced women’s Edwardian hairstyles. She lasted until World War I when changing fashions resigned the Gibson Girl to history.

Overall, women’s Edwardian hairstyles had a soft, fluffy and loose fluidity about them. They were large and often padded to create the bulk and size fashionable during this era.

The hair could even be quite fuzzy – especially if hot tongs were used regularly. Hair was always dressed up and away from the face, except a fringe, which could sit on the forehead.

The defining hairstyle for Edwardian women was the pompadour. It is named after Madame de Pompadour (chief mistress of Louis XV in the mid-1700s), although the Edwardian version is fuller.

The full pompadouris high, rounded and curved away from the head. Creating this shape meant backcombing and rolling a woman’s long hair into the desired form. Matted pads or rolls of hair (known as “rats”) were to support the hairstyle. They could also use a pompadour wireframe.

Ultimately, there were many ways to dress a pompadour. For example, the hair could be straight, have a wave or be curled. Likewise, the hair could feature decorative elements like a top bun, soft coils, and fuzzy curled fringes.

This version of the pompadour was dressed full and high at the front. However, the hair was not piled on top of the head. Instead, the bulk of the hair was dressed at the back.

As with the full pompadour, this style had many ways to be completed. A series of coils and puffs or a French bun were all popular. It was known in hairstyling books and publications for ladies as a “low coiffure”.

This was a softer version of the cartwheel hat hairstyle. It was popular with young ladies, especially college students and those working in clerical professions.

This is a late Edwardian style, seen from about 1908 onwards into the pre-war years.

Teenage girls wore their long hair down. Their hair could also be tied at the nape with a simple bow or worn in a single plait. One way to wear a plait was by tucking it under and securing the end at the nape with a ribbon. It was known (by some) as a doorknocker.

Young ladies would practice putting up their hair. For example, those at boarding school may have put their hair up for evening tea, giving themselves some much-needed practice before the real world beckoned.

A girl entered the world of adulthood at about 17 years of age. At that time, their “crowning glory” would be dressed up into one of the popular women’s Edwardian hairstyles. From now on, it would be inappropriate for hair to be left down.

The Marcel way of styling hair was in vogue for Edwardian women who didn’t have wavy hair. A Marcel Iron was used to create the distinctive peaks and troughs of this style.

Other curling irons were available and came in a few sizes. The larger sizes were used to create waves and curls. Smaller curling irons were used tocreate frizz– from soft and fuzzy edges on the fringe to curls along the nape.

Edwardian women heated curling irons in the fire, on a gas stove, or an alcohol lamp designed for the purpose. The hair was then twisted or wrapped around the hot iron.

Using hot irons could potentially lead to singed hair and even baldness.To help prevent this, the heat of the tongs could be tested on newspaper beforehand. Similarly, a piece of paper could be wrapped around strands of hair to protect it from rough or overheated irons.

The Marcel wave is most likely the inspiration for the invention of thepermanent waving machineby German hairdresser Karl Nessler.His “electric permanent wave machine” was patented in London in 1909.

However, with perms taking many hours to complete and costing a large wad of money, most women could not take up the newfound permanent wave during this decade.

Perming involvedwrapping the hair around rods and covering it with substances like alkaline paste and asbestos. Then, gas steamed the curls tight. Understandably, it could damage the hair a lot.

Edwardian hats were bigand got larger through the decade. So much so that some theatres insisted women remove them when attending a performance, thereby allowing the poor suckers behind to see the stage. Removal of these large hats was not a minor undertaking!

Hats were part of everyday lifefrom morning to night, and the hair was styled accordingly to accommodate the hat. At the start of the Edwardian era, hats sat more on top of the head. However, by about 1904, some were worn tilted at an angle.

The seasonsaffected the wearing of hats. As a general rule, lighter straw hats were worn during summer, while heavier velvet or felt was favoured for winter. Ladies with their finger on the fashion pulse would wear their new spring hat to church on Easter Sunday.

Large hats were not suitable forsportswear, so smaller hats were introduced. For example, the straw boater (which had been around for a few decades) was very popular as sportswear.

Some of the ladies hats seen in Edwardian times include:

• Flat capswere big and oversized.
• The Merry Widowwas named after the operetta by Viennese composer Franz Lehár. Performed in London in 1907, the lead actress wore a large, black plumed hat. It led to women wanting the same style.
• Cartwheel hatswith a wide-brim and made from straw.
• Picture hatsoften heavily decorated with flowers, fruit, feathers and tulle.
• Strawsailor hatswith black velvet bands were also popular sportswear.
• When riding in the open motor cars of the day, ladies would use awide chiffon veilabout three to six feet in length to drape around their hat and tie under the chin to keep it secure.
• Automobile bonnetswere silk hats specially designed for adventures in the car and worn with goggles to keep the dust from one’s eyes.

Ribbons created bows to attached to the hair. They were worn at the nape or tied on the end of a teenager’s plait.Bows were large and a prominent accessory.

Black was the most commonly seen colour. Velvet was a popular material for ribbon, as was taffeta and tulle.

Combs were both decorative and functional, with two or three keeping the hair in place for the day.The large Mantilla combs(usually worn at the back of the head) were often highly decorated with coloured stones, baroque pearls and gold filigree.

New plastic materialswere replacing the traditional materials of ivory, bone, tortoiseshell and horn. For instance, celluloid and Bakelite were not only cheap, but easy-to-mould materials that could be produced in various colours.

False hair was commonly used to adorn or bulk out the large pompadour styles.Switches and clusterscould add decorative detail, such as a chignon or braid. Likewise, women could buy fake ringlets and fuzzy fringes (known as a frisette).Wigs(or transformations as known then) were not uncommon.

The big Edwardian hairstyles required large amounts of hair – and not everyone was naturally blessed with rivers of hair. However, false hair was used with discretion in mind. In short, fake hair was not to be noticed and blended into the hair.

Hatpins kept the big hats secured to the hair. Ultimately, big hats needed big hatpins, which could be as much as 14 inches long.

Hatpins were decoratedat the head, featuring designs from the simple to the ornate. Silver, glass and jewels were often used.

The ends were very sharpand, therefore, potentially dangerous. For example, women were not allowed to wear unprotected hatpins on buses. Interestingly, suffragettes had to remove hatpins while attending court, in case they stabbed someone!

Hatpin collections would be stored on a padded pin cushion with a series of loops to hold the pins.

For similar reasons, the United Kingdom establishedthe Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It first appeared in 1889 as the Plumage League in protest at the number of birds killed for clothing. A Royal Charter was granted, which led to laws banning certain types of plumage in fashion.

Subsequently,goose and chicken feathersbecame the substitute material. The feathers were dyed and artistically fashioned into decorative pieces.

Female baldness was not uncommon in Edwardian times caused, for example, by overheated tongs, perming and hair dyes.

Cosmetic products were not subject to safety testing, and it was not required to list ingredients on labels. Hair products could contain all sorts oftoxic or harsh chemicals, including radium which gave things a glow-in-the-dark effect.

Women usedhalf, three-quarter and full wigsto enhance their natural hair and create the big styles of the era. Likewise, false hair concealed the baldness created by the fashion for big hairstyles and heavy hats.

It may have been a brief period in the scheme of things, but the large hats, pompadour hairstyles and corseted figures of the women make the Edwardian era a distinct and memorable one for fashion.

As Britain moved into the 1910s and the reign of George V, the continued rise of the Suffragettes and the onset of World War I saw women taking a new direction. Things were about to change.

• Photographs from Edwardian Britain
• Book onEdwardian hairdressing and barberingby Arthur Moler, published in 1906.