Only a handful of wigmakers exist in Australia — meet one of them

With a needle and strands of human hair, professional wigmaker Rebecca Bank can transform a dancer into a nefarious villain or an elegant aristocrat.

As West Australian Ballet's head of wigs and makeup, she is one of a small handful of people in the state who make wigs for shows for a living.

"It is a very niche job, so a lot of the time people don't really know what I do in a day," Ms Bank said.

"There's not an awful lot of us around."

With hair, moustaches and goatees, she transforms, ages and defines dancers on the stage.

"It is often very in the background, but can be a very important part to get the era right and the feel of the show right — especially in live theatre with quick changes," Ms Bank said.

"If you do it well, people don't know there's a wig on."

The process involves speaking with the designer, taking a mould from the dancer's head, padding that with cork and netting it before the knotting process begins.

It can take weeks to complete a wig.

"We have to sit in quite a specific position to see the very small mesh to get the hair in," Ms Bank said.

"It can be quite challenging on the body to sit for eight hours straight knotting."

Expensive headpieces

Most of the wigs are made from human hair, which makes the price of each headpiece about $5,000.

Unlike those creating wigs for film, Ms Bank has the added challenge to quickly swap the wigs on dancers within less than two minutes off-stage.

"The main thing for us is the dancers do have to feel confident when they're on stage, so they can't feel like the wig is loose in any way."

"Security for them is such an important thing."

Growing up with a love of ballet and theatre, she was drawn to the craft and studied in Germany.

Ms Bank says there were far fewer opportunities to learn the skills in Australia, but she hopes that will start to change with the help of a course launched in WA this year.

Learning the craft

Since February, a class of 18 young creatives looking to enter the theatre, film and TV industries have been learning the basics of wig making, costume, special effects and makeup at Perth's North Metropolitan TAFE.

From constructing 18th century wigs and yak-hair made moustaches to synthetic pieces, the students learn a variety of techniques.

Hair and wig lecturer Delia Stanley said the course was important to allow young wigmakers to continue to work in WA.

"Now we've got the [Perth] film studios, we've got lots more opportunities in WA," Ms Stanley said.

"Rather than getting people from over east, I think it's a great thing that people are getting trained in our own state and that you know they're going to have those opportunities now."

The passionate wigmaker and period hair stylist is delighted by the pieces the students have made.

"It's such a joy to be able to pass those skills on to other people as well and know that there's this new generation coming through," Ms Stanley said.