Thoughts on wigs, identity and representation

One of the aims with my photography is to capture as many different folks as possible. Bringing their style and personality to the camera is as important as the Hats we photograph. Styling wise I don’t expect much beyond them wearing black and maybe a bit of make-up to even out the camera effect, because I want them to be themselves. US or European model standards have never interested me because they’re generally white, skinny, young, blonde and able-bodied - I don’t see myself in that and I don’t aspire to it, either. I learnt a very long time ago that if I wanted folks to knit my Hats they need to see themselves in my photos because how else would they know if it would suit them? That said, I know I’ve a long way to go before my photos are as diverse as the knitting community.

While I’m limited to who’s around me and willing to be photographed, I do want to continue trying to bring in different models because representation is so important. I don’t have much of a budget and can’t manage anything beyond basic logistics but that doesn’t mean we don’t have options. One aspect that I find particularly challenging, with life in general not just my work or photography, is contacting or talking with new people and building new relationships, because hello ADHD and Autism. So finding folks we get on with and can work with regularly on an informal basis is essential.

In this photo we can see the crown of the ‘Out of the Darkness’ beanie pattern.

In this photo we can see the crown of the ‘Out of the Darkness’ tam pattern.

A number of years ago I started putting feelers out for older models, particularly women with long grey hair. I was put in touch with a couple of folks but sadly they weren’t local and the logistics proved too much of a hurdle. The last time I checked on Model Mayhem I found just one woman with long grey hair in the whole of Italy, and she was out of my budget and no doubt particularly busy given the number of magazine covers she’d appeared on. Good for her, but another dead end for us.

I started to realise even then that if I wanted better age representation that I’d probably need to be the model but it took several years to mentally prepare myself for that, and almost as long to buy a wig. I’ve been going grey since my early twenties and at 51 my natural colour is white, but my hair is proper short and I’ve no intention of growing it. I’ve now had my first grey wig for 6 months and we finally decided recently to put it to the test.

Here we see me, with long silver grey hair, looking down to the left of the frame. I’m wearing the ‘Out of the Darkness’ tam.

Here we see me, with long silver grey hair, looking down to the right of the frame. I’m wearing the ‘Out of the Darkness’ beanie.

Here we see me, with long silver grey hair, looking into the camera, smiling. I’m wearing the ‘Out of the Darkness’ tam.

I’ll say straight away that I don’t think these are bad photos at all, I quite like them, which is massive progress given how uncomfortable being this side of the camera makes me! And I’m finding how I look, or maybe how the colour and hair shapes my face, both interesting and weird. I’m a bit of a chameleon and have always suited different hair colours and shapes, and in turn different Hats and Hat styles, and I guess that’s one reason life has lead me the way it has - my head, whether it be the colour of my hair or the Hat I wear, has always been my playground.

The lines on my face - I’d call them wrinkles but they’re evidence of an expressive face and a life lived and we really need a better word for them - are much more apparent than they usually are. I’ve lost a lot of weight in recent months and poses that work well in photographs aren’t necessarily positions we’d naturally hold for long, so my face seems more twisted which would also emphasis them. This isn’t a bad thing - if anything it’s good because I need to look my age to pull this off! It’s just that I’ve a curious analytical mind and it helps me to know why, incase I should need to know again.

Yet despite overwhelmingly positive feedback from my Patreon supporters and then on Twitter, I’ve doubts about the wig and I’m trying to have words with myself about that.

Thing is, I know it’s a wig. I’m the person who insists on natural light photography; I won’t even use a reflector if at all possible because I want everything to be as it is in that moment, nothing artificial, nothing staged. I mean sure, a reflector bounces natural light but it bounces it in a direction that it’s not currently falling in. Just as I want my models to be themselves I want the environment to be, too. A number of years ago I had a couple of backdrops printed, with the intention that I’d always have a wall I liked to take photos against. One we used for the Lateralis collection and I’m in the process of replacing all of those photos because I can’t stand them, and the other we took some test shots of and they never made the light of day. Rather than create the right environment for my Hats and our models, I prefer to find the right environment and not interfere with it.

So you can maybe imagine why I’m having trouble adjusting to a wig. It’s not real and while that probably doesn’t matter to most people, it gives me pause. I’m currently considering a natural hair wig but I’m unsure of the best places to buy a good one and whether it’d be worth the investment as they are not cheap. The wig in the photos is Penny from Lush Wigs and it cost less than €30; natural grey wigs start at around €1000 up.

The other thing that’s bothering me has taken some time to find the words for.

As I said, my head is my playground. I can pull off different looks and often folks won’t recognise me. This has it’s upsides and downsides, and that can be a problem when my mental health isn’t all that great. I end up using my appearance, and wigs in particular, as a disguise. I project a face or appearance that isn’t mine, or is perhaps only one aspect of me, as a way to protect myself. To deflect. This appearance comes with a personality, I can be someone else for a while. It’s something to hide behind. I think it’s also related to ADHD or Autistic masking, only in more tangible form.

Relying on this might not be healthy long term, as I doubt I’ll be able to separate what the wigs means, or what it hides, from the work it’s doing. Especially given the positive response, it’s as if folks are loving the false version of me, my mask, and not me for myself. Praise for how we’ve used the wig to show off the Hats or tried to represent older women in the photos is far more comfortable than praise for how I personally look in them. Even though I know it’s all said with the best intentions, it’s overwhelming and I need to put some of this into words because I’m struggling under the weight of it, and if I don’t try and deal with the overwhelm I’ll abandon the photos of me completely.

I’m not quite sure what this means at the moment. It’s possible all of this will get easier as I get to know my Autistic self better and my mental health improves with EMDR treatment. It’s possible that more photos of me like this will remove the novelty factor, especially if I can reason with myself over the need for the wig in the first place. Perhaps it might be more manageable if someone else wears the wig, or if I succeed in finding a natural silver grey wig for me to wear that feels less glam, less staged.

This post didn’t turn out how I intended when I sat down to write but it’s helped me form a few thoughts around the identity we choose and how that matches with what we feel, and who we represent. We’re certainly not giving up on photographing me in this wig or in trying to extend our range of models; using me has many advantages not least in costs and logistics. But I need to weigh things up and work out where the balance is.