The Order of The Good Death

Deathstination: Leila’s Hair Museum

Say you happen to be passing through Independence, Missouri this summer and are looking for a combination of hardcore Victorian mourning customs, human hair, and Midewestern kitsch. Well, have I got the place for you, precious!

Meet Leila, the proprietor of Leila’s Hair Museum, self-proclaimed only hair museum in the world. As we know, hair was used to make jewelry and art in the Victorian period as a way to remember family members who had died.

If you think about it, visiting a room full of hair from those long dead is kind of like visiting a reliquary full of bones.  They are the only lasting remnants of the physical body.  And presented so artfully by this delightful woman.

Apparently Leila was a former hairdresser and the whole collection began as a hair obsession. Here’s an awesome quote from her biography, “Leila has reversed-engineered the process used in making the hair art and gives classes on the techniques.” Leila, Leila, tell me your secrets! Teach me your ways!

Visit Leila’s website and plan your visit. Thank you to Jessica Grill for finding me this wonder.

Posted on July 9, 2012 by caitlin
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  • Lmhall

    Thanks for this, I’ve always wanted to visit this place, it’s just down the road from me. I had read about it on a roadside America site, but never knew she had a website. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100401288 Tricia Rosetty

    I know that people can request a lock of hair from their love one’s body, but could they keep more? I was recently at the Mütter Museum and it made me wonder if people could arrange to have organs, like a brain, plastinated or put in a jar or something for a survivor to take home.