This will probably go down in history as the worst of all the Bad Crafts. In the Victorian era, there was a strange fad for crafts made from the hair of dead people. You heard me.
These crafts were typically designed to be a keepsake, something you would display in your home as a memorial to the dead. Every culture likes to memorialize its dead, but do you have to do it by making home decorations out of their hair?
Sometimes called "sentimental hairwork," this craft involved "using human hair to create intricate designs for rings, bracelets, brooches, and even wall decorations." The Victorians were certainly macabre in many respects, and in a certain light, this practice only seems natural. Why wouldn't you want to make a bracelet out of a hank of hair from your dear departed mother?
Of course, it also helps to understand how highly the Victorians valued the hair of a woman. Many women went their entire lives without cutting their hair. To the Victorians, a woman's hair was closely entwined with her identity as a human being. We value hair, of course, but not to that extent. We see it more as a decoration than a central part of what makes someone a person.
To be fair, most mourners did not make the crafts themselves. Instead, they clipped the hair of their departed, and sent it to a jeweler's along with their specifications for how it would be mounted. But many magazines aimed at women included instructions for those who wanted to make DIY hair mementos of their beloved.
Of course, the Victorians have the last laugh on this one. Victorian hair crafts have become rare collectibles, fetching a high price on the antiques market thanks to a combination of morbid enchantment with the craft and the rarity of the pieces.
Image courtesy Flickr/sandwichgirl
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