Hair and Its Patternmaking

Catalog
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For the Salon,

We are exploring the different stylings, patterns and combonations that come to life when dealing with hair

Some of these are trends, other have hisotrical/cultural reference while there are styles that are personally and/or biological driven,

These include but are not limited to Curl patterns, length of hair and the dying/bleaching of one hair.

For Example :

  1. Weaving of Hair - How to Weave Hair (with Pictures) - wikiHow

  2. The names of Various Haircuts & Hairstyles for Men: https://www.thetrendspotter.net/haircut-types-for-men/

  3. Policing of certain hair styles(patterns),

    Dreadlocks : https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxbvz/belizes-female-police-officers-finally-win-their-right-to-rock-dreadlocks

 Black Girls Hair: https://www.forbes5.pitt.edu/article/crown-under-siege-policing-black-girls-hair

 Hair Discrimination : https://www.naacpldf.org/natural-hair-discrimination/

  4. Debunking Myths of Hair Coloring : https://blog.haircuttery.com/color/myths-about-hair-coloring/

These are just some of the examples of when looking at the various of patterns of hair and their outcomes.

Do Y’all have a favorite hair style, routine or color ?

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Hey @illestpreacha, if you haven’t seen it you might like these pages on the CSDT (Culturally Situated Design Tools) website:

I don’t know anything about hair myself though and am not really sure what a barber expects me to say when they ask me what I want done… Somehow I leave with less hair though so it’s good :wink:

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Thanks for this, I will make sure to add it to the list and will add extra research to this thread

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This summer in Paris, I saw an incredible exhibit on the history of hairstyles over the centuries – it closes next week for anyone who happens to be there: Des cheveux et des poils

There appears to be a catalog on Amazon although it’s $76: https://www.amazon.com/cheveux-poils-Denis-Bruna/dp/2383140139

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Thanks for this. It looks really cool and adds some nice prespective into the world of hairstyles.

Anything you took away from it or was noticeable?

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This reminds me of Mona Hatoum’s 1995 piece “Van Gogh’s Back”

van-goghs-back
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A few things I remember about the exhibit:

  • They had a beautiful collection of historic busts, which they exhibited backwards (with the face away, hairdo facing forward) – subtle yet powerful
  • They highlighted styles and techniques over the centuries for both hair removal AND hair addition, both male and female, as well as haircare potions and tools over the past century
  • Quite the collection of decorative headpieces made out of real hair (see attached image)
  • An unfortunate overemphasis on European hair, with only minimal regard to, for example African hair / contributions to hair styling
  • A slight nod at the end to the Iranian women’s recent head-shaving protests
  • This was a vast and well researched exhibit, I don’t doubt that the accompanying catalog is probably excellent
    hair
    hair944Ă—1014 374 KB
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The project Human Material Loop in Holland is making yarn out of hair for garments.
They also have a super interesting blog on the history of hair: https://humanmaterialloop.com/history-of-hair/

Designer Sanne Visser in UK is also researching hair but for rope making:
https://www.instagram.com/studiosannevisser/
Her rope making device is open source and free on her website: Studio Sanne Visser

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I’ve been treating my weaving practice as an urbanist enquiry. Part of it references the informal trade of women who braid hair on the street here in my city. I’ve been using types of plaiting and braiding as part of the investigation as well.

Here’s an example of what I’ve been doing:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdlDhs6qvVO/?img_index=1

Pardon my poorly worded response. I’m tired today.

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Thanks for the details and this exhibition seems in depth and research, been having a time, looking through the examples they gave. Hopefully there is another one that explores globally and not solely from an eurocentric viewpoint. But never the less, it was interesting to see how hair patterns have changed over the years

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This Piece, I have never heard of till you mentioned it. The concept of Back hair is interesting cause outside of facial hair and hair on top of our heads, we tend to view other hairy parts, very differently.

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This ended up being a deep dive and I learnt many things that I didn’t know. Thank you very much for this, it is definitely going to help the research and has alot that it is a fun little excursion with every slide.

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Love the work and what sort of insights, have you been able to find out through your enquiry?

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I don’t know if this has been mentioned before (this is my first post here. Hi!), but Letitia Ky is a wonderful artist and feminist activist in Ivory Coast who does a lot of work with her own hair.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXUs91HIv1F/

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Thanks.
Some of my findings are similar to your observations. Discrimination is associated with specific hair types, so people would “code switch” their hairstyles as one does with a language to gain access to specific spaces. The same applies to dress codes. There’s definitely a connection for me regarding how the site will influence the decisions we make regarding hair and dress. It’s part of the “right to the city” conversation for me.

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Meshac Gaba is another African artist (male, from Benin) who, in one body of work, made a lot of headresses in the forms of iconic buildings made of hair (mostly synthetic hair, I think). I saw a show of this work at the Studio Museum in Harlem and have the small catalog somewhere.
Here is the online catalog of a larger show, not the one I saw, showing a lot of different work.

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The hair work plus the art work is really great. Reminds me of how much art can go into hair in these scenarios such as the Fantasy Hair competition (which has a netflix episode). Really like the range of the hair and the dimensions, she puts into her work. Thanks for sharing.

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Interesting that we don’t normally use “code switching” for hair and dressing but it does occur as one may not feel accepted otherwise or be treated differently. What other patterns would say bars someone from having full “right to the city”. We have mentioned hair and dress but maybe other walking style and their gait? certain colors?

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I suppose that specific hair colours might be considered “unsuitable” for particular environments, but I think of less permanent or reversible characteristics when I speak of code-switching. I haven’t delved into colour and gait as forms for code-switching, but I imagine some applications of the principle wouldn’t be far-fetched.

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