Blowing in the Wind: A Cultural History of Hair

Whether sparse or thick, curly or straight, dyed or gray: Blowing in the wind weaves an artistic, literary, mythological, and emotional narrative of our hair, its language, and its symbolism. Drawing on a vast array of sources, with refined and free-spirited erudition, Elena Martelli has crafted a narrative—both personal and collective—of the cultural revolutions that our hairstyles have marked over the centuries.

From Samson and Delilah to Petrarch’s Laura, from the hairstyles of the Sun King’s court to those in Hollywood films, from the wigs of English judges to hideous toupees: these pages allow us to lose ourselves in the fashions of every era, but above all to uncover the hidden meanings behind a “à la Titus” or “à la garçonne” cut, or to explore the pantheon of painters, sculptors, poets, aesthetes, and anthropologists who have depicted and described the locks and tresses that each of us wears. Because hair is not merely a defining feature of our style and personality but a symbol of an entire cultural universe.