Ah, the internet. I am happy to spend hours searching, researching, and sharing ideas as I crawl through thousands of fascinating sites each week.
The Victoria & Albert Museum website seldom fails to please. Enter this interactive V&A site on Georgian wigs designed which teaches as well as encourages you and your child to create a fashion of the past. We all know about the over-the-top wigs worn by Marie Antoinette and her court. Does hyour child? The V&A gives us an opportunity to design a wig virtually and to share the results with the world. 
Before each step, the V&A provides some information about the zaniness of wig creations in the late 18th century. The instructions then ask you to drag out the hair to start your wig.
I came up with this. Hah! I tried a number of variations. Such fun. This would be a great teaching activity with your children. Let them go NUTS, I say.
You are then asked to decorate with the usual ornaments – a ship, a fan, feathers, jewels, flowers, bows and tassels. Go crazy! I did.
Add powder in the final step, which I did not find quite as intuitive, and, voila! Your own bewigged work of art.
Could this interactive site have been more sophisticated? Oh, yes, but it’s free. Within the limitations of the site, the activity is quite informative and fun. Bring in a few paintings, caricatures, and illustrations of the day, and you’ve brought a fun history lesson into your child’s life. One can even show some modern influences.
Photographer Thibault Carron imagines what modern life would be like if our fashion was from the 18th century in this playful series And if Fashion Was…, the Montreal-based creative juxtaposes scenes from contemporary culture with a woman whose outfit and hairstyle recall a time from centuries past.
I’ve collected quite a few Marie Antoinette images on my Pinterest board, Marie Antoinette’s Hair and Other French 18th Century Inspired Fashion – Splendor during, before, and way after the French Revolution. Some images are historical, others are tongue in cheek.
As an online advent calendar gift, this V&A site can’t be beat. I hope you are all enjoying this holiday season.
Jane Austen's World 