The Secret Is Wigs
4 min readHeads aren’t rolling on the table, but they’re propped up in front of me, detached from bodies. “That’s Rihanna. Gisele. Try it on,” hairstylist Merria Dearman encourages me. With a few clips, I have Gisele’s Met Gala mane (because this is one of the rare occasions that warrant use of the word), with yards of silky, golden, tossable hair. I sort of want to neigh.
Despite some initial attempts not to be, Dearman is known as “the wig lady.” (While attending Vancouver Film School, where she learned her craft, she was also briefly known as “Merkin Merria.”) She’s fulfilled the hair-raising dreams of Madonna and politicians, but has even bigger ambitions for Provenir, a new hair atelier that she hopes will change the industry forever.
Wig crafting starts with an ultrathin piece of mesh, or “film lace,” with small holes in it meant to simulate hair follicles. Using a dental magnifying loupe, a wigmaker wields a ventilation hook, a long-handled tool with a sharp pick, to thread a strand of hair through the hole and tie it—then repeats that hundreds of times, using four possible knotting techniques. With Provenir, you’ll be able to go into a salon, choose from a variety of premade wigs, and have your selection be custom-fit and colored to your head and hairline.
Madonna performing at The Celebration Tour in 2023.
How real is it? The hair is human and ethically sourced by Dearman, whose associates pay women directly for their donations. It’s a system that took her 15 years to set up. “Even Certified B Corps will say, ‘Women aren’t being forced to donate their hair.’ And that’s true, but we can’t guarantee that they’re being paid an equitable amount. Giving money directly to the women is what is fair, and I set up a supply chain where we could do that,” she says. She and her assistant regularly scout hair in the wild, too. Recently, the two of them were at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel and stopped a woman with a beautiful, long red ponytail. She sold it to Dearman, telling her, “I’m getting my master’s degree in social work.”
Dove Cameron at the 2024 Met Gala.
Celebrity hairstylists marvel over her work. Harry Josh put Irina Shayk in a short Dearman-created wig for the Oscars that had outlets reporting on her haircut. “We convinced the world that Irina cut her hair into a bob,” he says. Despite wigs being common, particularly in Black culture, they still carry a stigma for some women. Celebrity hairstylist Jacob Rozenberg, who has used Dearman’s wigs on clients like Dove Cameron, says of the taboo, “For some white women, they are worried: ‘Oh my God, is someone going to know it’s a wig?’ Who cares? There’s not one person I don’t put extensions in for a photo shoot or red carpet. Wigs just make so much sense.” Wearing a wig can also feel like an admission of a problem that needs covering up, such as hair loss. While promoting her hair care line Cécred, Beyoncé said, “The misconception is that people who wear wigs don’t have long and healthy hair.”
But more recently, wig use can be seen as a flex. During the “King Kylie” era, the youngest Jenner openly wore different hair colors thanks to wigs. The Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Porsha Williams has a “wig room.” In Schitt’s Creek, the character played by Catherine O’Hara cries in front of her wigs as IRS agents take over her house.
Then there is the demographic that Dearman wants to serve most. Her aunt died of ovarian cancer and complained to her of machine-made options: “This wig looks like crap. It pokes me. It’s hot. When I put it on, I feel worse than I did before.” Dearman’s artisanal creations had people proclaiming that she was meant to bring them to the masses. One of her clients-turned-friends bequeathed her money to expand Provenir, confirming, “There’s nothing like this. I want to help you.” That client, Bridget Streicker, was Chelsea Clinton’s Stanford roommate; Clinton is now an investor herself. “Everyone deserves to have a chance to feel good, comfortable, safe, and great in every part of your body, including what’s on your head,” says Clinton of lending a voice to Dearman’s cause. She and Dearman are also working together toward introducing legislation that will establish standards and quality requirements for wigs in New York State. “We want to ensure that there is nothing toxic in wigs, because that is not keeping in line with what should be the standard of safety, dignity, and beauty,” Clinton adds.
Hairstylists intimately understand the connection between hair and identity, especially Dearman, who has heard the whispered desires of the famous and the sick, and sought to make them come true in equal measure. “We’re not just doing hair. We understand you as a person and how you see yourself. We hear all your stories. This just kept pulling me back in, and then I was like, ‘Okay, well, I have to create a business around this.’ That’s what makes my wigs special.”
A version of this story appears in the September 2026 issue of ELLE.