Published on: 2026-08-13
Pop Culture and Bizarre Fashion
In the 1700s, what bizarre fashion trend led high-society European women to carry tiny, functional items inside their towering, elaborate wigs?
Correct
To truly reach peak 18th-century drama, elite women styled their hair into massive structures called poufs, which often contained cages housing live songbirds. It sounds like a chaotic precursor to modern livestreaming, but it was just pure fashion madness. Live wine bottles would be far too heavy and prone to leaking, making for a very messy hairstyle. Carrying a compass in your hair would be a strange way to find your way home, and while flute music is lovely, stuffing an instrument into a wig is just asking for a woodwind disaster.