An Alsatian peasant woman, dressed in her finest Sunday attire, demonstrating the craft of hairnet making at Selfridges, represented the industry’s elegant front stage. Behind the scenes, however, as many as half a million Chinese women and children were employed producing hairnets for the Western market when the fashion was at its peak around 1920. Yet, fashion is ever-changing. With the advent of nylon, the global demand for human hairnets declined rapidly, rendering the once-thriving trade obsolete.
