Tignon

And so the summer rolls on and fades towards its end. With it comes Hair Fair, something I raid year after year for a pretty interesting reason.

What am I looking for there, you ask? The head wraps!

Where I’m from, our culture has a type of covering called a tignon. Tignons were worn by creole women originally as a way to distinguish them (due to some really sad discrimination laws you can read about here*), but lately they’ve come back in vogue as a statement of reclamation. We love our tignons, and the symbol of one paired with a woman smoking a pipe is an image of power.

Every year, I like to visit Hair Fair’s bandanas section and find the head wraps that resemble tignons as closely as possible. It’s got to have that Caribbean feel to it for it to work–there are all kinds of Afrocentric hair wraps, and they aren’t all the same in style.

I usually get the ones made by Baiastice since they fit what I’m looking for the closest:

This year, they’ve come in pretty patterns! I like to pair the tignon with waistcoats and jackets from Contraption (pictured) and Hotdog. Suited up correctly, I look like a time-traveler from the past.

Do you like Hair Fair’s bandanas section? What type of head coverings are your favorite? Do you like to sometimes dress up in ancestral garb? Let me know what you think in the comments!

What I’m Wearing:

[ a.e.meth ] – Haumea skin (coming soon!)
Pink Fuel – Beauty Glaze eyeshadow / Tomie lipstick
Cureless – Cutie Coven eyes
Baiastice – Aisha Turban (Brocade Azure)
Contraption – Noble’s Tailcoat (Admiral)
Tori Torricelli – Candice Earrings
Moon Amore – Angelic Souls ring & chain
Neve – Bootlegger pants

Music: Lana Del Rey – Doin Time

*Historical fact! Esteban Rodriguez Miro, governor of Louisiana at the time, was the man who enacted the Tignon Laws in 1786. His niece by marriage was Delphine LaLaurie. Yes, really.