September, 1999

This month Wigstock, New York City’s annual dragfest, has an anniversary. But Wigstock isn’t the only place where one sees people going all-out with wigs. This once marginal item is about as fashionable as can be. Not since Louis XIV have people been so smitten with doing up their heads as they are now.
But the current fashion for wigs is not just about looking fabulous (though of course that’s a big part of it) – it appears to be about opening up the mind. Wigs offer a quick and easy means by which one can break free from a rut, explore fantasies, and-perhaps most importantly – liberate a self image. What better time than now in this time of obsessive self-improvement and impossible, ironclad standards of beauty, to cut loose? Is that why so many people are throwing on wigs and exploring their self-definition – or losing it entirely? It’s about finding out who you are, or maybe who you aren’t: Either way, the choice is entirely.
Now that the rest of the world is catching on to the kind of personal freedom that Wigstockers have enjoyed for years, wigs are bound to go through the roof. We asked Lady Bunny to give us her view: “It’s hard to believe the Wig stock dragstravaganza will be celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this Labor Day Weekend. A Big Apple Institution, the celebration attracts thousands of rowdy revelers in counterfeit coifs, faux ‘fros and sham shags – a far cry from the small crowd it first gathered in the East Village in 1984. Back then no one could have predicted how wigs would sashay into the mainstream. No longer something to be ashamed of, wigs are now proudly featured everywhere, from fashion runways to music videos – and the more unnatural the better!