Shiny strands twisted into bow earrings, long swathes trailing from the back of shoes, neat braids turned into ties: we have reached peak hair obsession, with brands like Simone Rocha, Schiaparelli and others using hair as an accessory. Jil Sander, Marni and even Prada had furry, fuzzy looks that skirted the line between fashion and hair. And if the runway wasn’t enough, look at Doja Cat and her dancers’ hair-covered costumes at Coachella (created by hairstylist Charlie Le Mindu) to see the hair-raising effect of using real human hair as an accessory that goes anywhere but your head.

We’re living in increasingly weird times, and perhaps that’s why hair is the trend du jour among fashion lovers. It’s a little bit morbid, a tiny bit creepy and slightly macabre. And if nothing else, it has an incredibly intimate and sentimental effect. It’s human. At Simone Rocha’s couture collection created for Jean Paul Gaultier earlier this year, the designer played with natural-looking hair in place of where she normally might have used shining beads, pretty pearls or dainty little ribbons. As the pieces went down the runway, you really had to look twice: were those little buns sitting pretty on the sides of the models’ heads, or earrings? “The earrings were an interpretation of my signature bow earring but I wanted to disturb them,” Rocha tells Dazed. “I wanted to make them playful and thought provoking. Also, Gaultier is so visceral and connected to the female form, we wanted to bring in that little human emotive element.”

Speaking of human elements, for Margiela’s recent couture show, John Galliano used hair as an accessory in a very different way. Underneath all those sheer dresses and contoured corsets were statement underwear: human hair embroidered onto silk tulle to create a merkin effect. Margiela’s collection had an overarching dark feeling, not unlike the Victorian era, when mourning jewellery made of human hair was incredibly popular. Simone Rocha has also explored the Victorian era, most recently taking inspiration from the mourning dress of Queen Victoria for her fall 2024 collection. Even Chloë Sevigny wore Victorian “Mourning Hair” designed by hair artist Mustafa Yanaz for the 2024 Met Gala.

“The Victorian era was a time of great sentimentality,” says Rachael Gibson, AKA the Hair Historian. “Wearing the hair of a treasured loved one – alive or dead – was a way of keeping them, very physically, close to your heart and represented a public sign of a personal feeling.” At the time, it was commonly available through mail order catalogs, but even the wealthiest people wore accessories made of hair. “Mourning jewellery was most famously popularised by Queen Victoria, who was widowed young and spent the rest of her life in mourning,” adds Gibson. These original pieces have a sort of magical quality – they’re literally 200 years old and can still be commonly sourced secondhand.

But even before that, hair had been a fashion accessory for centuries. “Hair has been used in mourning masks, suits of armor and in status pieces used to commemorate battle wins, marriages, births,” says Gibson. She points to the lovelock as a favorite example, which was worn through the 16th and 17th centuries as a sign of romantic attachment, either over the heart as a necklace or on the ear as an earring. “There are many examples across diverse cultures of using human hair as a totem, accessory or textile, for myriad reasons,” she adds. “In cultures where hair is considered sacred, the notion that part of the self and soul might reside in any part of the body separated from it means that its usage is even more complex, particularly when involved in pieces created to mark symbolic life stages.”

Modern fashion’s fascination with hair comes and goes. For Martin Margiela’s AW94 collection, the designer created a blonde hair necklace, with a printed cardboard label tied by a thread that read “100% VERITABLE HAIR / REAL HAIR / MADE IN FRANCE”. Another well-known example was the wig and extension covered coats created for Margiela’s Artisanal fall 2005 collection, which was revisited later again for the spring 2009 collection. Ann Demeulemeester has done rooster, horse hair and feather jewellery pieces that resemble human hair. And today, D’Heygere is making hair covered jewelry, notably inspired by the female surrealist artist Meret Oppenheim, who created the infamous fur teacup and fur bracelets almost 100 years ago.

“Hair in fashion represents an exceptional raw material, with powerful symbolism and unique aesthetics,” says Antonin Mongin, the hair artist who worked on the Simone Rocha pieces as well as the hair earrings by the brand D’Heygere. “Hair pieces are always statements. It’s a fiber that leaves no one indifferent, and I think that’s why fashion designers are so interested in it. I’m receiving more and more orders from fashion houses that I never imagined would be interested. Hair can either attract or repel, and sometimes both at the same time. For me, the challenge is to constantly make the hair pieces I create desirable, so that the feeling of disgust doesn’t arise in the viewer.”

The rising popularity of the trend has sparked a DIY effect: many people online have been inspired to create their own versions of the Simone Rocha’s earrings or Schiaparelli’s tie. “I have seen this, at first of course, I was surprised to see people doing it online – taking scissors to their own hair but it is a compliment and I am happy that it made people happy and experimental,” Rocha tells Dazed. Likewise, Mongin has seen the influence of people creating these pieces at home. “I receive videos of girls from all over the world who voluntarily cut off a lock of hair to make their own hair jewelry on the same principle as what I do,” he says. “I think it’s great that this fiber can become an absolutely intimate and personal means of expression that anyone can undertake at home with inspiration.”

Maybe the act of prizing hair as a fashion accessory reflects the tumultuous times we’re in. We’re overstimulated with a barrage of images online and in real life, everyday. We’re all trying to find a deeper connection to what we wear and why we wear it – and what it means. Maybe it’s also about having a lasting presence. It’s kind of amazing to think that Georgian and Victorian mourning rings, pendants and brooches are still wearable 200 years later. In a sea of fast fashion and designer high fashion loaded with polyester, maybe the hair jewelry of the 2020s will outlive us all. Wearing a piece of hair – whether your own, or vintage – is like a shortcut to creating a visual lasting fashion memory.