Feature Friday: Jennylafleur
When it comes to hair, Jenny-Rose, the woman behind Jennylafleur, has a magical touch—her ability to distill complex historical styles into easy-to-use hair pieces is invaluable. With one of her cushions here and a set of her of curls there, anyone can create their own beautiful styles without the headache of trying to start from scratch. But this skill with hair (and makeup!) comes from not only from natural talent but also years of study and a life-long love of history.
Photo credit: Laure Jacquemin
“My mom loved to sew—so I first learned to sew and create from her. As I grew, I became fascinated with historical fashion and costuming, especially after my family joined a living history group when I was about 9 years old,” Jenny-Rose shared. “From then on, I researched and designed historic clothing, bringing them to life with my mom’s help. In high school, I began sewing solo, and it’s still a huge passion in my life.”
This passion for historic dress soon grew to encompass all aspects of historic style. “Initially, I researched and experimented with historic hair styling to simply add a finishing touch to my historical dresses and costumes,” she continued. “Historic hair became more of a focus for me as I pursued my cosmetology education and licensing. As my professional skills grew, I was finally able to achieve the looks that had been beyond my ability to reproduce up to that point.”
“Being able to combine my creative hobby and professional training was life changing and so much fun!” Jenny-Rose shared. “Jennylafleur was born after friends and followers saw the hairpieces and aids I made for my own historic hair recreations and began to ask me to make them pieces too, and the rest was history.”
And that combination of experience and professional training has allowed Jenny-Rose to channel her creative energy into creating beautiful hairpieces for her shop, though this process was not without its own challenges. “Overall, one of the hardest things I have done for Jennylafleur has been translating the knowledge in my head and my hands into products that are functional, affordable, durable and user friendly,” she explained. “Especially in the beginning I tested and prototyped different designs for months (sometimes years!) before I was comfortable offering them to my customers. It’s one of the reasons I don’t launch new products in the shop very often and limit the amount of custom work I take on these days.”
“An often-asked question I receive is ‘Why hairpieces and not wigs?’,” she continued, describing how and why she found her perfect niche in the costume community. “Wigs are great, but when recreating historical hairstyles there are many approaches one can take—full wigs, hairpieces, padding, all one’s own hair, or anything in between. Personally, I have always preferred to style my own hair, aided by pads, cushions and hairpieces, rather than full wigs, to create a desired silhouette or look. This layered approach to historic hairstyling is period correct, used throughout history, as well as being comfortable, creative, versatile, practical, and personalized. I love that I can throw a collection of hairpieces in my suitcase and make dozens of historic hairstyles from it, something that really comes in handy when traveling to events, like Carnivale in Venice last year. I was able to style my hair in multiple eras, from the 14th century to the 19th century, with only one cushion and about 6 hair pieces.”
This love of historic hairstyling doesn’t just scratch one creative itch. For Jenny-Rose the process is also the reward. “I can’t resist a good puzzle to solve, a research project to lose myself in, or the challenge of figuring out how to create or recreate something,” she explained. “I’m also driven by the satisfaction of taking a pile of materials and turning it into a three-dimensional piece. That love started with transforming a pile of fabric into a garment and continues with transforming a pile of hair into a form or style. There is a little thrill at the end of that process that I can’t get enough of.
Her constant curiosity has led Jenny-Rose to branch out into new offerings for her shop—more than just hairpieces, she now has deeply researched, long-form historical hair classes and shorter YouTube styling tutorials. “As much as I enjoying creating hairpieces, my favorite thing right now is making historic hairstyling tutorials,” Jenny-Rose shared. “I love digging into the research ahead of time, then getting lost in the flow of translating what is in my head into a finished a hairstyle. I love flexing the different creative muscles required to light, film, and edit a finished video. My favorite tutorial so far features Faux Marcel Waves from the Edwardian period. I’m super proud of that one, and I have a few I’m working on now that I’m equally excited about too.”
But like all of us, Jenny-Rose understands the difficulty of trying to strike the right balance in her professional career. “These days, my biggest challenge is balancing my two loves: the love of working with hair, creating hairpieces and working with in-person clients, and the love of sharing my knowledge of historical hair and professional styling, through classes and content,” she explained. “It’s tricky as both are time consuming and as a solo creative small business owner there is only so much of me to go around.”
You can find out more about Jenny-Rose and Jennylafleur on her website, www.jennylafleur.com, and follow her on Instagram (@thejennylafleur) and YouTube (@jennylafleur) for more historic hair and costume inspiration!