Several of the comments in this thread about hairpins got me thinking about historical hairpins. I can't remember whether this has ever been discussed before? I know when I hear hairpins mentioned, the first thing I think of is bobby pins, so that's what I tend to imagine Gen plucking out of Irene's hair, but bobby pins are actually quite recent--early 20th century or thereabouts--so my imagination needs some reworking, lol. Historically speaking, Irene's pins could be metal (including precious metal), wood, stone, or bone/ivory/horn, and while some might be plain and meant to be hidden, others were probably quite elaborately carved (we might think of them as "hair sticks" today, rather than pins). Here's a page with lots of links to pics of historical pins: http://larsdatter.com/hairpins.htm
Branching off this topic a bit, here's an interesting article I read a while back about this hairstylist who has reconstructed historical hairstyles based on busts and paintings--and discovered that a lot of upper-class ancient Roman women's elaborate hair-dos were sewn in place, not pinned: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578286272195339456.html She's got videos on YouTube, too, showing how to do various styles.
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Date: 5/1/13 06:19 am (UTC)Branching off this topic a bit, here's an interesting article I read a while back about this hairstylist who has reconstructed historical hairstyles based on busts and paintings--and discovered that a lot of upper-class ancient Roman women's elaborate hair-dos were sewn in place, not pinned: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578286272195339456.html She's got videos on YouTube, too, showing how to do various styles.
--Handmaiden