Creating unique family hair-looms

A design student from Goldsmiths, University of London has used human hair to create a range of personal items from bras to shoelaces to skipping ropes.

Lydia Hunt’s final year project is based on her book 106 Ways To Celebrate Human Hair, in which she asked people ‘if you had your lifetime’s worth of hair spun in to wool what would you make, why and who would you pass it down to?’.

The anonymous respondents ranged from five to 94 years old. So far she has created 10 of the suggested heirlooms, which will be displayed at the Goldsmiths Design Degree Show in Peckham, London from 7 to 11 June.

Suggestions included:

A bra: ‘My friends and family could take it in turns to wear it. The hair would itch, but would be a little reminder of me’

A pair of shoelaces: ‘So every time my family want to go out when I’m not around they’ll still remember me’

A skipping rope: ‘I used to love skipping, so I’d want my children and grandchildren to play and think of me’