The ancient Egyptians wore them to protect their shaved, high end wig shops from the sun. Other ancient cultures, including Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greek and Romans also used wigs. Wigs are principally a Western form of dress in the Far East they have rarely been used in traditional theater of Japan and China. Some artists-East Asian (Japanese Geisha, Korean Kisaeng) wore wigs (Katsura and Gache, respectively) as part of their traditional costumes. After fall of the Roman Empire, The use of wigs fell into abeyance in the West for a thousand years until revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one’s personal appearance. They also served a practical purpose: the unhygienic conditions of the time meant that hair attracted Head Lice, A problem that could be greatly reduced if natural hair were shaved and replaced by an artificial hairpiece more easily de-loused. Hoods were also used in the same defensively.
Royal patronage was crucial to the revival of the human hair wigs.[Citation needed] Queen Elizabeth I of England known and wore a red hair weft, well and carefully wrapped in a “Roman” style while King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643) and King Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) pioneer the wig-wearing among men from the 1620s onwards.
synthetic hair wigs or wigs for men were introduced into the English-speaking world with other French styles when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 after a long exile in France. These wigs were shoulder-length or longer, imitating the long hair that had become fashionable among men since the 1620s. Their use soon became popular in the English court. The London diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the day in 1665 that a barber shaved his head and he tried on her new human hair wigs for the first time, but in a year of plague he was uneasy to wear:
"3rd September 1665: Up, and put on my colored silk dress, very beautiful, and my new wig, bought a long time, but Darst not wear because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it. And it is amazing what will be the fashion after the plague is done wigs; because no one will dare buy Haire, fear of infection? He had been cut off heads of dead from the plague. "
