Vol.3 Experience - Past : Present - Research

◊

EXPERIENCE - Vo l u m e 3 -

◊

Anja Crabb | MA Fashion & the Environment | London College of Fashion 2012

Hair jewelry - http://www.victoriana.com/ Jewelry/images/hairjewelry-12.jpg

http://sheefashion.iosconsultancy.co.uk/2012/06/02/clip-in-hair-extensions/ — 01 —

PREFACE Women’s hair has always been a contentious issue: it is a badge of femininity and beauty. In the story of Samson and Delilah, hair is even Samson’s source of strength. However, in the Hindu ritual of Mundan a child’s head is shaved to signify freedom from the past and moving into the future. Also in the Victorian times hair had symbolic significance: the hair of a loved one was used to create jewelry for a memento mori or a gift of love.

Also, while hair itself is not alive, shampoo advertisements promote healthy, shiny hair. How can something dead be healthy? This ‘dead’ hair is also a carrier of a wealth of information: not only does it contain genetic information but elements of the food we eat and the air we breathe also deposited within the cells. Scientists can draw conclusions about our lives from a single strand of hair.

Ragini, a design student from Bangalore, answers my 10 questions about her experience of shaving her head - why she did it and how her friends and family reacted. And Siegrun tells us about her daughter’s first haircut and why she still as the clippings 25 years later.

— 02 —

Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

Hair has also become a commodity to buy and sell: Britons spend 65 million pounds a year on hair extensions. It is interesting to note that while we pay up to thousands of Pounds to have hair from strangers around the world glued into our own hair, hair that we shed daily can instill a feeling of disgust - for example hair that ends up in the plug-hole of our shower.

10 QUESTIONS FOR RAGINI LALL 1. Why did you shave your head?

My hair has been one of my most defining features in terms of looks - I’ve been very confident about how my hair looks and how beautiful it is – having been told that since my childhood. I wanted to see what would happen without it. Would I feel beautiful or ugly?

And I knew that it’l grow back. I was planning to get a boy cut, and then I thought I should do this now – go bald now.

2. Do you know any other females who have shaved their heads and their reasons for it?

Yes I do, I’m in art college. So I know three more peers of mine who went bald. One who I met for the first time was bald and the other two went bald a year or so after I did. I have forgotten their exact reasons – but as far as I remember it was purely experimental.

3. Did most people assume (like me) that did it for religious reasons?

No, not really. One or two did, because I’m studying in South India.

And in South India there is a place called Tirupathi – where people offer their hair as a sacrifice. Again, I’m not sure, I’ve been told this.

Not even sure if women go bald there.

4.How did people react to it?

I hadn’t told many people I was going bald. My friends were all excited – I was a butt of their jokes for a while. Though they did appreciate the risk I had taken. My mother was shocked, she thought I was going through some psychological trauma- but it grew on her - after a bit she would enjoy stroking and playing with my head that was now like a soft carpet. My father seeing my mother’s reaction took on the cool dad’s role and made fun of me and accepted it gracefully. My sister was super cooled out. My grandmother barely reacted, and asked me if this was the new fashion?

5.Was it the first time you had shaved your head?

Yes.

— 03 —

— 04 — Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

6. How did you feel before/during/after the experience?

Very confident. I felt very proud of myself. I had decided to take this risk, stuck by it. I was ‘cool’ for myself now (a lot that has diminished as it’s been 3 years – and I hardly remember I went bald on an everyday level).

7. Where did you get it done? And did anyone accompany you?

A friend and I cut each others hair ourselves at home. We both went bald together – I cut his hair- he cut mine.

8. Did you keep the hair that was cut off?

No not this time. But once earlier when I chopped my hair from mid back length to neck length I kept my hair in the hope of giving it to some charity that makes wig, but never found such a charity.

9. How would you feel if your cut hair was sold on?

I wouldn’t like it to be sold; I would give it for charity. I don’t like the idea of someone making money of my hair.

10. And finally, what was the most memorable part of the experience?

I think everything- from looking in the mirror to see my bald face, to having my first shower, where the water falls directly on you and not through you hair, getting stuck to the pillow case due to the friction of a bald head, how obsessed I was with touching my head when my hair started growing back, my various stages of looks when I started growing it out again. My family and friends reactions. Everthing. The confidence I felt about being bald.

— 05 —

Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb “My mother was shocked, she thought I was going through some psychological trauma - but it grew on her - after a bit she would enjoy stroking and playing with my head that was now like a soft carpet.”

— 06 —

This e-mail correspondence took place on the 13.09.2012. Photos and text published with kind permission of Ragini Lall. — 07 —

— 08 — Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

◊ “I FELT VERY PROUD OF MYSELF” ◊

“You will always see parents bending down to their children to take in their smell... the hair of a small child gives off a wonderful scent!

Even these clippings still carry that scent.”

— 09 —

She remembers: my daughter had unusually beautiful hair from day 1: as a newborn she had such delicate fuzz on her ear, too delicate even to draw, the pencil lines always seemed too harsh. Already in the first few months the lighter curls grew over her little ears and around the centre parting there grew one particularly thick curl that we had to tame with a ribbon or hair clip, as it would fall into her eyes. It was a difficult decision to cut these wonderful curls, which was made around her second birthday. I’m glad that I managed to keep these curls of hair.

When I touch them, I remember how I used to kiss the top of her head in the mornings before the adventures of the day, or always in between when she comes home to mum and at night and when she’s asleep. You will always see parents bending down to their children to take in their smells... the hair of a small child gives off a wonderful scent! Even these clippings still carry that scent, even if just a fraction of how they used to. The purse is from China, where the mental conceiving took place, where we decided to have a baby.

email correspondence 01.11.2012.

Photos and text published with kind permission by Siegrun von Loh. — 10 —

Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

Hair clippings a mother has kept for 25 years; It was her daughter’s first haircut, age 2.

Bianca

HAIR DONATIONS FOR EMBROIDERY ON GARMENTS.

Helen

Ankita

— 11 —

— 12 —

Amanda

Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

Xenia

Thalia

Hair embroidery applied to garment — 13 —

Photo : Thalia Warren

— 14 — Fashion & the Environment / Anja Crabb

- Vo l u m e 4 100% recycled stock Design - williamhuxford.eu Special thanks to Charlotta Connor for the dots and Young Ju Do for the bio-plastic.