Several factors may be influencing a strong resurgence of interest in adding adornment to hairstyles. One is the widespread excitement over the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which took place on April 29, 2011. Style watchers tracked the fashionable Middleton as the girlfriend of the prince for years before their nuptials. Her ensembles have incorporated both very proper hats in the British tradition as well as uniquely British head ornaments called fascinators. Her style has captivated the world.  A few of her styles and similar looks, pictured below, are featured in the April 18, 2011 issue of People.

Following closely on the heels of the royal wedding, the Kentucky Derby presented its annual American exhibition of fancy hats. The May 25, 2011 issue of People magazine compared royal wedding and Kentucky Derby millinery designs and asked “which toppers are tops?”  

One guest who broke with tradition at the royal wedding, causing more than a bit of comment in the social media, was the British Prime Minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron, who showed up without a hat but wearing a bejeweled clip by Erdem in her hair to accompany her Burberry cocktail dress.  The design is in the shape of three starbursts.

Jewelry-accented hair is making an appearance in fashion magazines. The May 2011 issue of Glamour features “hair accessories for grown-ups,” showing a mix of bejeweled barrettes and, on celebrities such as Diane Kruger and Katherine Heigl, brooches pinned into the hair.

Diane Kruger’s look is discussed at length in a review of Academy Awards style in the March 2011 issue of InStyle. Kruger’s one-stop shop for the Oscars was Chanel, from which source she choose modestly sized diamond Camellia earrings, “saving the drama for the back of her head, where a brooch with more than 1,000 black and white diamonds sparkled in her loose updo.”

This recent ad for Swarovski, which ran in the February 2011 issue of Elle, pictures a model wearing, among other pieces, a pair of brooches pinned to the side of her hair, which is worn down.

A Chanel Fine Jewelry brooch pinned to the side of long hair worn down is also featured in the January 2011 issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

At what is described as “fashion’s biggest ball of the year,” the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala held this month, many of the exquisitely dressed luminaries in attendance chose to adorn their locks. While versions of hats and fascinators were spotted on several celebrities including Demi Moore, headwear adornment gravitated toward the use of jewels pinned directly into the hair.

For instance, a very pregnant Kate Hudson wore a starburst brooch in her hair along with a dress by Stella McCartney. Naomi Campbell wore a Fred Leighton brooch in her hair; Shalom Harlow chose a Harry Winston brooch for her hair.  Fergie appears to be wearing a couple of Harry Winston necklaces as headbands. Rashida Jones appears to be wearing a bejeweled head accessory. Designer Stella McCartney too wore what appears to be a wave-shaped brooch in her hair. You can find photos of all these celebrities at the 2011 Met Gala on Huffington Post Style.

As the weather heats up over the summer and hair gets piled on top of the head, I expect we will see a good deal more of the trend of adorning the hair with jeweled accents.  

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