Adventures in Hot Glue Gunning, part 1

So the museum just got some amazing new mannequins, right? And they're super-cool and adjustable in a way that the old mannequins aren't, and they're specific to a time-period (late 1800s - early 1900s, Victorian to Progressive era, to be exact) so they have a silhouette that is commonly referred to as "pigeon-breasted," and they're wonderful, amazing, fantastic, the best thing since sliced bread, etc.

HOWEVER... they don't have hair. This normally wouldn't be a problem, of course. Most of our mannequins don't even have heads, and the ones that do are just these blank ovals that we leave bare. But these new mannequins have surprisingly well-defined facial features, which means that having them be bald just makes them look creepily like aliens in really gorgeous hospital gowns. But we can't use real wigs made of fake colored hair, because the mannequins are sheet-white. Having some strange white lady with the suggestion of facial features but a full-on titian red updo would end up being as distracting as leaving them bald.

So what's a museum to do? Why, get their trusty intern to make a paper wig! So that's what I did today - constructed a paper Gibson Girl* updo out of white pantyhose legs, thick cardstock, and tissue paper. And A LOT of hot glue. I felt like the MacGuyver of the museum world.

*as reference, this is what a Gibson Girl hairdo looks like. It was apparently very difficult to achieve - women would form the big loose bun with the tiny topknot and then fill in their hair with tissue paper in order to maintain the look. So actually, my paper wig isn't so far off the mark, materials-wise.