Some barristers practicing criminal law in England and Wales are no longer required to wear the classic horsehair headpieces in cases where they prove 'uncomfortable or impractical'.
The British legal system isn’t abandoning its 300-year tradition of curly white wigs just yet, but it is making room for lawyers who may not want to look like they are auditioning for a production of Amadeus while arguing armed robbery cases.
Some barristers practicing criminal law in England and Wales are no longer required to wear the classic horsehair headpieces in cases where they prove “uncomfortable or impractical”.
It codifies a growing recognition within the profession that not everyone’s hair was built for Georgian-era fashion.
The criminal-court dress guidelines, updated in July by Britain’s Bar Council after two years of review but only receiving wide publicity now, specifically relax the rules for barristers with Afros, dreadlocks or other “hairstyle traditions” associated with their ethnicities.
The exceptions don’t require any advance permission, and some practitioners have already begun to go wigless. The Hogwarts-style robes and white wing collars are still required.
The Bar Council, which represents some 18,000 legal professionals, added permission for other categories of lawyers to appear bareheaded as well, albeit with advance written approval from a review body.
They include pregnant women, barristers going through menopause who may find them too hot, and those with physical disabilities that may make wig (or gown) wearing difficult. Bone-anchored hearing aids, for example, may not function optimally under a wig, the Bar Council noted.
The recent review of the guidelines was sparked by a lawyer who pointed out the practical difficulty of fitting the tightly fitting headpiece over his Afro.
The updates had been quietly in effect until the British tabloids noted them last week with headlines that said they amounted to the “end” of the wig tradition.
But advocates hailed the change.
“This ensures that black and minority ethnic barristers, and others whose cultural or practical realities make wigs unsuitable, are no longer placed in an impossible position,” Leslie Thomas, a veteran London barrister who represented victims of the Grenfell Tower fire said in a statement.
“The quality of advocacy and courtroom dignity do not depend on horsehair or on the remnants of seventeenth-century aristocratic fashion.”
Thomas, who calls the ancient court dress requirements “culturally insensitive”, is among lawyers who would like to see wigs and robes abolished entirely.
A spokesperson for the Bar Council said that they would evaluate the changes after a three-year trial and that scrapping all the rules was not currently under consideration.
The modifications are not the first breach of a sartorial tradition going back to the 17th century.
The courts long ago began allowing Sikh and Muslim barristers obliged by their faith to wear turbans or headscarves to forgo the wig. And Britain’s family court system, where divorce and custody cases are decided, ditched formal judicial wear in favour of business attire completely in 2008.
Change has been slower to come to criminal courts, which remain bastions of solemnity and formality. In Britain that means barristers and judges wear the tightly coiffed horsehair wigs that have been clamped on judicial heads since the reign of King Charles II (1660 to 1685).
Where critics see anachronism - or bad cosplay - traditionalists see a taproot to the origins of Britain’s justice system. And the new wig rules have some of them pulling their horsehair out.
“Let’s save the wig,” Robert Buckland, a longtime criminal prosecutor and politician who was justice secretary under former prime minister Boris Johnson, said in an interview.
“Look, we’re talking about a bit of horsehair here, but you could argue that it goes to something deeper. At a time of failing institutions, let’s remind ourselves that we do stand for some enduring values.”
The pro-wig arguments centre on gravity and anonymity. Buckland likens them to school uniforms and calls them “great levellers”.
A bewigged young barrister is identical, from the ears up, to the most senior opposing counsel and to the judge - everyone’s a bigwig.
And as security threats to jurists and lawyers have grown in recent years, many practitioners take comfort in the fact that they may look nothing like their courtroom selves once they step outside.
“Away from court, the very same jurors I had been arguing before would look right through me with no idea of who I was,” Buckland said. “I always felt like I was putting on the helmet to go into battle.”
The judicial wig - also known as a peruke or periwig - is traditionally crafted of horsehair that is washed, colour-graded and handwoven into a fabric backing.
The process takes weeks, and the best cost upward of US$800. The oldest provider, Ede and Ravenscroft, have been makers and purveyors of judicial wigs since 1689 (they also make coronation robes and other royal finery).
The wig tradition grew out of European fashion when powdered headpieces distinguished the highborn from hoi polloi and, among other things, covered up all the hair loss from syphilis. Wigs faded from common dress but stuck on in courtrooms as unmistakable totems of the legal profession.
Complaints that they were an out-of-date artifact aren’t new.
“Who would have supposed that this grotesque ornament, fit only for an African chief, would be considered indispensably necessary for the administration of justice in the middle of the 19th century?” wondered John Campbell, who was a British chief justice in the 1850s.
Going on two centuries later, the legal profession remains divided on those who see the wigs as hot and scratchy relics and those who see them as marks of decorum and respect for the life-and-death issues at play, according to Sam Mercer, the Bar Council’s head of policy.
“I think the bar is split down the middle,” Mercer said.
Many, Mercer said, view the experience of the family courts, which scrapped wigs 17 years ago, as highlighting the pitfalls of moving to simple suits and ties. The mood has shifted, and not always for the better, she said.
“There have been some really unfortunate incidence of judges not being treated with the same respect,” Mercer said. “We’re now hearing arguments from the courts to go back more to court dress.”
Samuel March is one young barrister who has mixed feelings about the garb. The 33-year-old describes himself as “a failed actor” who loves the costume effect of donning the wig.
And he appreciated how it added gravitas to his boyish face when some grizzled clients expressed scepticism of his experience.
But they can add misery to Britain’s largely un-air-conditioned courtrooms.
“If they are a barrier to accessibility for racial minorities or women who don’t want to dress like a man from the 18th century, I can see that it might make the career less attractive,” March said. “I think there are more pressing concerns than traditions.”
Ultimately, the new wig guidelines are only that, recommendations approved by the Bar Council in consultation with the judiciary. The final word on who wears what will come down from the benches.
“At the end of the day, the judge determines whether someone is dressed appropriately,” Mercer said. “It’s their courtroom.”
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