The "Académie de Coiffure"
Hairdressing history
As far back as we have any record, hairdressing has been one of the principal means of personal adornment. Often certain modes of dressing the hair have signified a particular rank, dignity, age, a deed of special bravery, and the like. Even today a Zulu warrior stiffens the hair around the circumference of his head so that it forms a very noticeable coronel. Priests of the Roman Catholic church have a particular tonsure, quite different from that worn in the Greek church. Six centuries before Christ the Greeks, both men and women, wore most elaborate head-dress, as did the early Egyptians. A century or so later Greek men began to cut their hair short, and from that time on, except for intervals when they wore wigs, men in general have paid little attention to the hair. Not so women. Their coiffures have gone through every possible variety of elaboration with only occasional intervals of sanity. In the reign of Louis XVI of France a strange structure of pillows and crinoline formed the foundation for a great tower surmounted by a little cap of feathers or flowers quite removed from the head. One woman is said to have gone about topped with a tiny model of a ship.
