10 thoughts on “The Borgias: Kick-Ass Hair: Season 1

  1. I loved the costumes for this show. Being such a teal-obsessed person, my favourite were both Giulia Farnese’s and Lucrezia’s teal dresses. An it seemed that Lucrezia’s was used throughout the series.
    I thought the hair designs were telling. The women, Lucrezia and Giulia, hair seemed to have a dual purpose. Showing their growth in age, window, etc. and also image control of how they wanted to appear.

  2. What drives me crazy in period films is the fact that hair is always pulled back off the face and secured somehow at the back of the head. This goes for both men and women — one of the reasons I won’t watch any of the “Viking” stuff. If you look at the portraits, you see that the women did not, for the most part, have their hair pulled back — you do NOT see their ears! Maybe modern hairdressers want to show the actresses’ faces. I don’t know, but as a long-time SCAdian, I’m used to seeing period hairstyles done correctly — no matter how unflattering. I remember one woman with very long, blonde hair and an Italian Renaissance persona. She actually curled her hair into tiny ringlets, slept on it wet, then when she undid the curlers, she had perfect, wavy Renaissance hair. And she topped that with a beautiful beaded net. She looked like she walked out of a portrait.

    1. Would you happen to know of any resources for just how to get those Renaissance waves without heat? I absolutely love the look, but I can’t find anything historical or otherwise that tells me how they got their hair like that and braids certainly don’t work on my hair.

      1. You could try to twirl yoir hair around a rag, in small locks. It should gave you little waves once you brush it

  3. From what I’ve been told, wet your hair and braid it. You can do a lot of little braids rather than one big one. Sleep on it overnight. When you unbraid it, it should have all those Renaissance waves. Probably finger comb it rather than use a brush. My own hair is naturally very wavy, so all I have to do it wet it and let it air dry.

  4. Ooh! Thank you! I love the Borgias, sadly you don’t have much posts about them. Will you do the dresses too? They are gorgerous! Thank you

  5. Was there a phase a few years ago where we were all wearing those beaded hairnets? Or am I just making things up?

  6. The hair in the first season was my favorite. I felt as the seasons went on the hair became very unrealistic due to how many extensions they were putting on the actresses. While the styles were nice, the extensions were very obvious and they could have done the same hairstyles just smaller without the excessive extensions and it would been just fine.
    Also I thought they should have kept Lucrezia’s hair the same color as the first season. I understand they darkened and curled her hair to make the character appear darker, but I think the light tone suited her, it made her scheming appear more devious in season 1.

  7. Nice article. I agree that they did an amazing job with the visuals in the series. I think they took a lot of inspiration from original portraits and sources, so I find it generally convincing to look at.

    Your whole website is great, by the way :) I have to admit that I LOVE adaptations of historical figures and events for entertainment purposes, but the real fun is to check and compare it with the facts afterwards. I absolutely have to take my time and read through all your articles :)

Comments are closed.