Long before the pre-Raphaelites,the so-called Virgin Queen made red hair which had been much-maligned – so fashionable that her courtiers started dying their beards to match. Here’s how she did itThere’s a painting in the National Portrait Gallery that has long been a source of fashion inspiration for me; it dates from approximately 1575, and is a peerless image of redheaded chic. Elizabeth I wears a gown of white and gold satin with dashing scarlet frogging across the breast, and like a hussar,and she holds a particularly wonderful feather fan – whites and sulphurous yellows, dismal iridescent greens, andanges and russet reds. That ghostly face is turned three-quarters of the way toward us; her expression reserved; her lips compressed. The line of that nose – “rising somewhat in the midst”,as Sir John Hayward described it – is clearly shown. My nose does the same. My hair is also red. Elizabeth I has been my pin-up girl since I was tiny. But it was only when I began researching my book Red: A Natural History of the Redhead that I came to appreciate how revolutionary Elizabeth’s image-making truly was. Elizabeth’s red hair was no accident. For most of her life, Elizabeth wore wigs, or so she might have chosen hair of any colour she liked,but she chose red; she was so committed to the shade that she is even supposed to have dyed the tails of her horses to match. (Who says redheads don’t have a sense of humour?) Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com