When you think of the process of making a wig, perhaps you picture a soulless factory with an automated production line, pumping out synthetic pieces somewhere in an industrial park — probably not a tiny, unassuming shop on a leafy Paddington backstreet.
But it’s here, behind what looks like a regular salon, that the team at Raoul, London’s oldest surviving wig-maker, has crafted thousands of human hair wigs for NHS alopecia and cancer patients since it opened in 1899. Even now after 123 years, it is changing the game: this time by revolutionising the way donated Afro hair can be used to create life-enhancing pieces for its clients.
