- [Narrator] Hair trends.
As quickly as they appear, they disappear.
Except for this one.
Men's powdered wigs, a trend that strangely lasted
a century and had close ties not to fashion
but to an STD.
Powdered wigs, also known as perukes,
were all the rage in the 1700s.
They were the hot item for aristocratic men.
But it wasn't a stylistic choice.
Rather men mostly wore the wigs
because of syphilis.
Starting in 1580, syphilis outbreaks
spread to become one of the worst epidemics
to ever hit Europe, on par with The Black Death.
There were no antibiotics to combat the disease, and
so victims faced blindness, dementia,
hair loss and even open sores.
At that time going bald was considered
quite embarrassing.
As syphilis spread, the wig makers got busy.
They created beautiful perukes coated with powder
and even scented with lavender to hide
any unpleasant smells.
At this point the wigs were not yet considered stylish
but all that changed in 1655 when Louis XIV
started going bald.
Clearly the King of France couldn't be seen
without hair.
So he did what any man of that day would,
he bought a wig.
Well actually he hired 48 of the best wig makers
to create him a custom wig.
Five years later, the King of England did
the same thing.
Shortly thereafter aristocrats followed suit
and thus the term "bigwig" was born.