Fashion icon with a head of her own

Vienna had been a fashion centre since the Congress of Vienna. During what was known as the "second rococo", the period between 1848 and 1868/69, Empress Elisabeth of Austria became a style icon. Three wigs showing the Empress's hairstyles are now on display in the Sisi Museum.

Sisi's floor length hair is legendary. In most pictures, however, her hairstyle is only seen from the front. In order to communicate a three-dimensional picture of the hair fashions around the turn of the century, the hairdresser and makeup artist Hannelore Uhrmacher was commissioned to create three of the Empress's hairstyles using genuine hair. These will be displayed, together with a number of curling tongs, curling scissors and other historical hairdressing accessories, in the display cabinet by the turnstile to the entrance of the Sisi Museum, starting from Holy Week.

Garland instead of a knot

Like any fashion icon, Empress Elisabeth did not accept the fashion dictates of the time; instead, she was the one who set them. Even while she was a young bride, her hair was only based on the prevailing fashion but had its own style. Thus, although Sisi wore her hair parted in the middle and brushed backwards in a bow, it ended not in a knot at the nape of the neck but rather in plaits woven into a garland.

From the theatre to the Hofburg

Around 1860, hair was mostly combed tightly and smoothly backwards, leaving both ears free and making a knot of individual braids of the hair or plaits at the back of the head. In addition, a large pad of hair, known as the Cadogan, was often placed at the nape of the neck. Sisi refused to follow this style, if only because of the length of her hair and her natural curls. Instead, he was fascinated by the imaginative hairstyles of the actresses in the Vienna Burgtheater. Accordingly, she brought a hairdresser at the theatre, Franziska Angerer, also known under her married name of Nanny Feifalik, to the Court in 1863 to look after the Empress's hair.

Hair like a crown

One of Sisi's last hairstyles resembled a crown, as her history teacher Constantin Christomanos also noted. In reply to his comment: "Her Majesty is wearing her hair like a crown", the Empress, who certainly found her long and thick hair a burden, replied: "Except the other one can be removed more easily."

Olivia Lichtscheidl,
Curator Sisi Museum