Saturday, February 16, 2013

Coiffures of the Past

A hairdresser recreates ancient hairdos.
In recent years, Ms. Stephens has reconstructed the styles of ancient royals including Faustina the Younger and Empress Plotina—sometimes on live models. Last year she gave a presentation at an Archaeological Institute of America conference in Philadelphia in which she lined up several mannequin heads.

"It was like a bad science-fair project," she says. "I had no idea what I was doing." Also speaking that day: a researcher with new insight into spearheads from the Iron Age in South Italy.

There is one hairstyle that Ms. Stephens says she hasn't been able to find a real, live model to submit to. The style, seen on an ancient Roman sculpture known as the Fonseca Bust, boasts a tall, horseshoe-shaped pile of curls in the front that would involve cutting the model's hair. "It's like a mullet from hell," she says.
At the cavernous, Buddha-filled Baltimore salon where Ms. Stephens is employed, her fellow stylists find her archaeology work a bit mysterious. Nevertheless, they occasionally model for her Roman re-creations. (Read entire article.)
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