Chameleon hair: How hair’s materiality affects its fashionability

This article seeks to explore the changeable materiality of hair. Drawing upon the archaeological concept of the palimpsest, as an inimitable material record, it illuminates how hair’s chameleon abilities are the foundation upon which the contemporary hair fashion industry resides. As Nigel Thrift notes, hair ‘is the easiest part of the body to alter. It grows so must be cut’. However, paradoxically, it is hair’s very materiality that also inhibits its conformity to certain fashions. While hair may appear to have chameleon materiality, it has multiple temporalities. And as this article argues, hair is simultaneously changing and changed, but it displays constant features.