Chignon

In fashion throughout the 1800s and up until the 1920s, it is a hairstyle in which long hair is gathered up in a bun held on the nape of the neck by hairpins, sometimes hidden and sometimes decorated with strass, or glass paste, or jewels. It gets its name from the archaic French term chaiugnon, which means nape of the neck. The chignon changed its position in 1865 when a new fashion placed the bun higher up on the head; in fact, the low chignon is called a catogan, a term from the 1700s that referred to a hairstyle worn at the time only by men. The drastic change that occurred with the haircut à la garµonne and the prevalence of short and medium length hair, in a ponytail or a page-boy cut, from the 1920s to the 1960s, caused the decline of the chignon (apart from a brief fashion identified with the backcomb). But it often returns to center stage, especially with evening dresses, in frequent and changing revivals.