This One Wigs Me Out
By Twistie
Rooney Mara wore one in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Lucy Lawless was fitted for one for Spartacus, but didn’t wear it in the end.
Heidi Klum wore a huge, terrifying one in Blow Dry.
Kate Winslet refused to wear one in The Reader.
Fifteenth century prostitutes wore them.
What potentially not safe for work fashion item am I talking about?
The merkin.
So what’s a merkin? It’s a pubic wig.
While its origin is shrouded in a bit of mystery, it’s believed that the merkin originally developed for prostitutes who had to shave off their hair in that area due to pubic lice or had gone bald down south from mercury treatments for STDs. That is, after all, the first documented use of merkins.
But today they’re widely used in the film industry when actresses bare all, and either don’t really want to bare all all or don’t have a southerly mane that is full enough or the right shape or the right color for the situation.
Heidi Klum’s for Blow Dry was about having the right shape (Heart) and making a great comic moment, Rooney Mara’s was for color (in the books the character was naturally a redhead who dyed her hair black). Kate Winslet just said no to the merkin because if she was going to bare all, she preferred to bare all. And Amy Landecker wore one in A Serious Man because bikini waxes were not common in 1967, the year in which the story was set.
So what inspired this talk of merkins this morning? Well, just because you’re not starring in a major film production doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of the opportunity to wear a merkin.
You can go to Etsy and have Razorblade Cupcake make you one just like this custom bacon one with matching fried egg pasties.
In fact, if you go to Etsy and do a search for merkin, you can find an entire page of merkins, merkin-related items, fishing flies named merkins, and a couple oddball things thrown in for good measure just in case you really didn’t mean merkin.
Oh, and full disclosure: I did wear a merkin once. It was for a Fourth of July party with the theme of ‘Proud to be a Merkin’ thrown by some very silly, ridiculously overeducated, and seriously detail oriented friends of mine back in the eighties. We all pinned our choice of red, white, or blue merkins to our skirts or pants. I chose a red one for the best contrast with my blue and white striped capris.
Why yes, I do have a colorful past… and present… and (knock on wood!) future, too.
But I think I’ll skip the breakfast merkin.
