Leila's Hair Museum is a museum in Independence, Missouri that displays examples of hair art dating back to the 18th century.
Leila's Hair Museum is a museum in Independence, Missouri that displays examples of hair art dating back to the 18th century.
Hair art was a form of art that began in the 16th century or earlier, and flourished in the Victorian era. A collection of hair from family, friends, or a gathering such as a wedding, was made into a hair wreath by making flowers of the hair. It was then put into a shadow box frame. Wreaths were also made as memorial pieces using hair from the deceased. It was used by people wanting to keep a memento of a loved one before the invention of photography. [1] This form of art also consisted of necklaces, bracelets, rings, lockets, paintings and medallions embellished with strands of hair. [1]
Leila Cohoon is a retired cosmetology teacher living in Independence, Missouri.
Leila founded the Independence College of Cosmetology. [2] She started collecting hair in 1956 and considers it to be her life work. [3] She was always fascinated with hair as a child and believes it is one of the most unusual parts of the human body. She opened the hair museum in 1986 in a small front room in her cosmetology school. [2] She did this because she was running out of space for the collection of hair art that she had built up over the years. Later, she moved her hair museum a few blocks from the old location so as to be able to expand. [4] The new location for the museum consists of several rooms with their walls covered with the hair art from top to bottom . [2]
Leila’s museum has 600+ wreaths and over 2,000 pieces of jewelry which includes locks of hair dating from the 18th century and earlier. Her oldest exhibit is a brooch dated 1680. [5] Many framed items are over a hundred and fifty years old. These include one which is an assemblage of hair from every member of a chapter of the League of Women Voters, and two made of hair shorn from sisters that both entered a convent. [2] There are also exhibits that include the hair of famous people. Elvis Presley is represented; Michael Jackson is present as well, and the museum appeared in a Jeopardy question on December 30, 2016, reflecting this. [6] There is also hair from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, Aaron Burr, Marilyn Monroe, singer Jenny Lind and Queen Victoria. [7] Leila is not as interested in collecting the hair of famous people as she is in preserving hair art.
Independence is the fifth-largest city in Missouri and the county seat of Jackson County. Independence is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020, it had a total population of 123,011.
A tiara is a jeweled head ornament. Its origins date back to ancient Iran, which was then adapted by Greco-Romans. In the late 18th century, the tiara came into fashion in Europe as a prestigious piece of jewelry to be worn by women at formal occasions. The basic shape of the modern tiara is a (semi-)circle, usually made of silver, gold or platinum, and richly decorated with precious stones, pearls or cameos.
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A hair museum is a museum that has displays of hair, hair art, and/or items or paintings made using hair, for example that of celebrities. Hair museums date back to the 19th century.
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