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Globe and Mail / October 25, 2008
BEAUTY TREND 8 LUXE HAIRPIECES
Wigging out over big hair’s return
Janette Ewen
Jennifer Lopez uses wigs to get more pouf in her ‘do.
Photograph by : Hector Mata, AFP/Getty Images
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After seasons of flat-ironed
locks, the style pendulum has
swung to the opposite extreme,
ushering in full, fabulous
hairstyles coiffed and
configured using that long-forgotten
accessory: the wig.
“I love the full-looking hairstyles
celebs like Penelope
Cruz, Jennifer Lopez and Jessica
Simpson have when they’re
on the red carpet,” enthuses
Kathy, a 34-year-old convert
who owns over $12,000 in
hairpieces. “But no amount of
volumizing product or hair extensions
are going to get you
that. It wasn’t until I discovered
that the celebrities are
wearing wigs and hairpieces
that I figured out that I can get
that look.
“I give my wigs names; each
one is for a personality,” she
adds. “Samantha is very outgoing.
Courtney is a little more
sophisticated and a bit
moody.”
Like many other women,
Kathy has discovered that wigs
allow them to get the playful
styles seen on magazines and
in movies. Unlike wigs of days
gone by, new attachments and
hair treatments make today’s
incarnations easier to wear
than ever.
“We have never seen quality
like this before,” says Michael
Suba, owner of Continental
Hair in Toronto. “We have wigs
that are full and yet only weigh
ounces.”
“For the last few years, people
have been attempting to
mimic the big hair they saw on
celebrities with extensions and
product,” he adds. “They never
realized the celebrities were
wearing wigs because the hair
looked so good.”
The man responsible for
placing haute hairpieces on
the heads of wig-wearing celebrities,
including client Lopez,
is the Cuban-born,
Miami-based stylist Oribe.
A household name in the
early nineties, Oribe defined a
generation with his oversized
supermodel hair.
The look was glamorous,
sexy and big – and relied
heavily on hairpieces. It dominated
the catwalks and international
magazines, from
Chanel and Versace to Vogue
and Allure.
“I would add so much hair –
the bigger the better!” Oribe
said recently of his self-described
“more is more” bent.
He would travel from shoot to
catwalk with nine bags of wigs
and hairpieces.
But when designer Marc Jacobs
paraded flat-haired models
through his landmark
grunge show in 1992, he did
more than change the face of
fashion. He also kicked off a
new era in beauty – a dour period
of flat, unprimped hair
and minimal make-up.
Backstage at the time, Oribe
was devastated. “Marc handed
me a barrette and asked me to
just throw it in [a girl’s hair],”
he recalls. “This was the start
of borderline vulgar hair.”
Signalled by Jacobs’s show,
more became less when it
came to coiffure and Oribe’s
business started to unravel.
“But I stayed true [to the
look],” he adds. “I know what I
like when it comes to hair.”
Suba experienced the same
decline in wig sales as hairstyles
deflated during the
1990s. “Our fashion wigs went
from boom to bust,” he says of
his business, which was founded
by his parents in 1964.“The
look of the last 15 years,” Suba
adds, “has been much more
conservative, less fun. People
stopped seeing their hair as an
accessory.”
In previous years, wigs and
hairpieces had been mainstays
of a women’s beauty arsenal –
a fact that Oribe remembers
fondly. “Wigs should be commonplace
in every women’s
wardrobe,” he insists. “They
are a key accessory.”
As Suba notes, “young women
today were never exposed
to wigs and still see them as
dated or for older women, yet
they are trying to achieve the
look of a wig with extensions,
backcombing and product. It’s
a bit ridiculous.”
As wigs return to the style
spotlight, so does demand for
the services of Oribe, who is
being called on to once again
style fashion’s elite, including
such nineties icons as Linda
Evangelista.
“Linda always could do big!”
Oribe laughs. “We just worked
with her on a shoot for W magazine
and we did enormous
hair using hairpieces. It looked
incredible.”
As for Continental Hair, sales
are reaching new heights. “We
haven’t seen a demand like
this in years,” Suba says.
“We’re sending custom-designed
wigs to clients in Hawaii,
New York City, Paris.”
Many of his new products are
showcased in his salon. “We
now have lace cap wigs so the
wearer can hardly tell that they
have a wig on,” Suba says. Another
creation, a hair clip
called the Postiche, was designed
by his mother. It attaches
to the crown and “gives you
a lot more hair to play with.”
** Oribe’s salon (www.oribesalon.
com) is located at 1627 Euclid
Ave. in Miami Beach. Continental
Hair (www.continentalhair.com) is
located at 92 1/2 Avenue Road in Toronto.
** Special to The Globe and Mail
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com
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