The Paradise (2012)

The paradise is a British television drama, written by Bill Gallagher, that launched its first series in 2012. The programme is based in 1875, during the mid-late Victorian era and portrays the lives of those working, trading and shopping in the first British department store. The series is focussed around the life of a young woman - Denise Lovett (played by Joanna Vanderham), and how she becomes engrossed in a society that is being modernised more and more everyday.

The series includes many woman, all varying in age which makes it ideal to show how, as the Victorian era progressed, the style of both clothing and hair was adapted and became more modern than its previous strict regimes.

In the early Victorian era (1830's - 1860's) hairstyling for woman of all ages was made up of three simple elements - middle partings, plaits and buns, however as time progressed the hair became more adventurous and, although these elements were still a big part of hairstyling for the Victorian women, the styles became less 'pristine' and more exciting.

For example, Young girls began to wear the beautifully long hair, they'd never cut, loose with a parting on the side, creating the appearance of a side fringe and allowing the younger generations to feel more free and actually act young rather than like mini versions of their parents. However, these were not the only changes. Women started to loose the perfectly drawn middle parting they had and began to have curls overlapping at the front of the hair, providing more volume and depth to their hair. They had perfect pin curls covering their whole head with out a plait or a bun in sight, don't get me wrong, the mid-late Victorian era still had plenty of plaits, but rather than being tight to the head and covering their ears they began to pile them into big buns on the top of their heads for a more sophisticated but youthful look. In the space of just 10 years the Victorian women's hair had gone from being tight with a not even a hair out of place to even the oldest generation of woman loosening up the curls and having it carelessly pinned back with a few even hanging out at the front or the back (sometimes both!).

I think the new looser hairstyles that came about in the later years of the Victorian period and therefore those that are seen in 'The Paradise' episodes are a result of the growing independence women were gaining throughout the years. It was becoming more and more normal for women to get jobs (just as Denise Lovett did in the series), only a few years before it would have been unheard of for a young girl of her age to be working like she was. The looser hair shows the looser strain of rules the Victorian society once faced. 

I really enjoyed watching this series as, after seeing films etc. based in the early Victorian era it was refreshing to watch something that was in the same era but yet had so many differences after just a few years. The way the woman's behaviour and  hairstyles change was intriguing to me. I found that I do prefer the hairstyles I saw represented in 'The Paradise' simply because, although they used many of the same techniques they had in the early years of the Victorian era, they did lots of different things with them and rather than all the females of similar age groups having the exact same hairstyles, the characters in this series all have different hairstyles throughout the film that change, overall I felt it just made them more interesting and easier to differentiate between.