A closer look
Victorian mourners obsessed with the afterlife combined their grief with a macabre sense of fashion by crafting elaborate, intricate jewelry out of the actual hair of their deceased loved ones to keep their spirits close. They believed that hair contained the immortal essence of the soul since it did not decay like the rest of the body, making it the perfect mystical conduit for remembering the dead. Widows would proudly walk around wearing heavy brooches, braided pocket watch chains, and massive floral wreaths entirely woven from the crusty locks of their late husbands. While modern people might light a candle or visit a psychic to feel close to the other side, nineteenth-century society just thought it was totally normal to accessorize your mourning dress with a complicated knot of dead guy fuzz
