Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion

Abstract

This book, edited by Cheang with G. Biddle-Perry offers the first thorough examination of the social importance of the expressive, representational and material possibilities of human hair. The presentation, manipulation and daily experience of human hair are situated within the processes of inscribing cultural meaning, through a complex network of normalising standards and discursive practices. Approaching a diversity of contexts, from classical ballet to television sitcoms, and from India to the East End, this collection examines hair across age, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. In addition to co-editing the collection, Cheang co-authored wrote the substantial introductory and concluding essays, which offer an original synthesis of cultural studies and anthropological approaches to the study of hair. Cheang also wrote the chapter ‘Roots: Hair and Race’, a 6,000-word essay that analyses museum collections of hair in relation to constructions of ‘race’ (pp.27–42). In particular, Cheang worked with medical, anthropological and natural history collections that include both samples of human hair and photographs. These primary sources are analysed in the context of a critical reading of 19th-century literature that attempted to explain ‘racial difference’. Extending this research, Cheang and Biddle-Perry co-wrote a new 10,000-word entry on ‘Hair’ for the November 2011 online update to the Berg Encylopedia of World Dress and Fashion. Other closely related activities included the organisation and moderation by Cheang and Biddle-Perry of the international symposium ‘Hair Stories: Practice, Theory, Culture’ at the V&A Museum (2009). Following publication of Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, Cheang was invited to comment on the meaning of hair collecting and beauty styling in the popular media, including Vogue (2011), The Stylist (2011), Observer Magazine (2013), Elle Canada website (2013), and in the television series programme Taboo (National Geographic Channel).

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