Dare to imagine a faux-medieval fantasy with somewhat accurate hair

[cimorene]

Like, if the hair was even on the same level as the costume design, which is to say, recognizably alluding to multiple places and times in the general time period, or more accurately, body of cultural memes and ideas associated with it. And yet in spite of a wide variety of creative and fancy styles of braids and updos on show, mostly on the side characters but occasionally the main characters, like Egwene and Nynaeve... there's still a plurality - majority? - of female speaking characters wearing their hair unbound, or half unbound, in completely implausible situations.

I mean, it's possible that I'm too suspicious, but I think hair and makeup design are casualties of the need for women to look fuckable and pretty at all times, just like body hair. And dirt. And non-modern eyebrows. And, all too often although not in this show, practical shoes.

Comments

[cimorene]

Hah! She's so right. But I'd add wardrobe and makeup. It's really funny, but even the best episodes of, say, Poirot, or BBC Jane Austens, still have costumes and hair AND MAKEUP that's recognizable to the decade. It's not like the knowledge of this stuff doesn't exist, either. The field of research into medieval costume at least (which includes hair although makeup only to a lesser extent - since before the advent of realistic paintings there's a lot more guesswork) has an INCREDIBLY rich body of knowledge and even from the eary medieval period, there's a huge quantity of available depictions of women and their heads.

It's not ONLY Mary who would be shown without a veil - and for that matter she's often depicted with one too - but saints and queens, occasionally, but probably for the same reason (purity). And that's probably why the 19th-century-on historesque depictions of - I hesitate to confuse their subject with the actual period, so perhaps I should say the Age of Chivalry - typically feature the Eowyn on the Battlements hair. And of course, these latter-day depictions are the roots of the modern fantasy genre.