Editor’s Note: Featuring the good, the unhealthy and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a daily sequence devoted to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the final seven days.
Superfans of Lisa Rinna could have noticed The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills breakout star round Paris this week — although her signature honey blonde spiky bob was noticeably absent. Instead, Rinna attended the Haute Couture exhibits carrying a rotation of wigs, starting from an inky black bowl-cut worn with a blue Balenciaga sports activities jacket for Demna’s closing couture assortment for the model, to a towering, lilac-colored beehive for the Viktor & Rolf present.
Both seems to be have been created by Johan Hellstrom, hairstylist to the stars and proprietor of Swedish haircare model Björn Axén. Each wig, in line with Hellstrom’s Instagram Stories, was painstakingly utilized to Rinna’s head with excessive precision by two individuals. If you weren’t conversant in Rinna’s huge following (3.7 million on Instagram alone) and actuality TV notoriety, you may suppose she was going undercover — eager to be disguised. In actuality, her wigs are a approach of capturing as many eyes as attainable.
Already, the web has began to poke enjoyable at Rinna’s seems to be (“It’s giving Bob from Beetlejuice,” wrote one TikTok person beneath a video of the star on the entrance row, posted by French superstar title Gala). But if fashion is about artistic expression and individuality, significantly in the context of couture — which represents the highest degree of customization and artistry — ought to extra individuals be finishing their outfits this manner?
Over the years, A-lister sightings at couture week have included Doja Cat painted crimson and embellished with 30,000 Swarovski crystals, and Kylie Jenner sporting a pretend, lifesize lion’s head on her shoulder. On Monday, Cardi B introduced a dwell crow together with her to the Schiaparelli present. But regardless of these dramatic shows of surrealist fashion, one thing rather more easy — a wacky or vibrantly coloured wig — is surprisingly uncommon. So a lot in order that Rinna’s are sometimes headline-grabbing. Her previous seems to be have featured a bowl lower paying homage to the ‘80s, which she sported at Paris Fashion Week in 2023, a Marilyn Monroe-style blonde blowout, and a firetruck red pixie cut. “I’ve had such a ball doing that form of stuff,” she advised Bravo of her eccentric hairstyles in 2023.
Fashion designers are equally conversant in the energy of an artificial wig. For Jeremy Scott’s New York Fashion Week present in 2018, fashions together with Gigi Hadid and Stella Maxwell wore uneven blunt bobs in rose pink, child blue and fluorescent yellow. At Anna Sui’s present a 12 months later, Bella Hadid strutted down the runway in a spiky fuchsia mullet, whereas Kaia Gerber had a bruised blueish one to match. More lately, Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons flipped the materials capabilities of wigs with stable plastic ‘dos that sat on the head like a helmet. At the JW Anderson show in 2024, tightly curled mops in stone gray accomplished the narrative of the nosy neighbour of a bygone period.
Wigs have a protracted historical past relationship again to historic civilizations. Both women and men in historic Egypt wore wigs, usually made from human hair or plant fibers, as they served as symbols of standing and subsequently protected these with shaved heads from the solar. For centuries, they’ve additionally been current in African and Black communities, the place they’ve been worn for numerous complicated causes starting from cultural expression and hair safety to navigating Eurocentric magnificence requirements.
However, at fashion week, the use of wigs seems to be completely ornamental and avant-garde, the approach a party wig exists in the identical camp as a set of press-on nails or a unusual bag. It’s a of entirety, an adjunct that provides to the character embodiment.
Of course, it doesn’t make sense for all attendees. The editors, consumers and stylists attending fashion weeks are likely to have a stacked agenda, with loads of work to do. Their apparel, then, should serve the objective of consolation and professionalism. But for the distinctive few, corresponding to Rinna, their aim is to be photographed — and for these pictures to be as broadly circulated as attainable. With the most outlandish seems to be receiving consideration in the digital age, it could be why some attendees decide for the most eye-catching, generally head-scratching kinds. And how higher to face out than with a statement-making wig? Even these with little curiosity in fashion will know by way of the medium of fancy costume events that faux hair is the crowning function on any dedicated costume.