February 7, 2025

Deabruak

The business lovers

Barristers swap horsehair for hemp as they try out first vegan court wigs

The 1st batch of vegan court docket wigs are being trialled after a barrister sold 10 hemp-based headpieces to colleagues who usually don kinds produced of horsehair.

Samuel March, a junior barrister at 9 King’s Bench Walk, said his ambition to shake-up the Bar’s 200-calendar year-aged tradition of sporting horsehair wigs in court is now in the “testing phase” as recipients head to the courtroom in his biodegradable invention.

Mr March informed The Telegraph that he is examining the wigs can stand the test of time with a little selection of barristers prior to he pushes forward with a much larger start.

He explained: “Hemp is a notoriously challenging substance so I do not anticipate there remaining any issues, but there is normally a hazard where by you are the very first in the earth to try anything. Creating them below [in the UK] on this scale and cost position implies my sector is mainly restricted to vegan barristers, which is a small market – but one that I intend to maintain advertising to.”

He stated he bought the first batch of wigs as a result of social media and “robing area term of mouth” but is checking out offering long term batches by means of the UK’s first legal clothes shop for women, Ivy & Normanton.

The Cambridge-graduate to start with unveiled his options for a biodegradable hemp wig on social media a calendar year back, when he posted on Twitter and Linkedin: “The prototype has arrived. This is the world’s initially hemp barrister’s wig. 0pc horsehair, 100laptop vegan friendly”.

At the time, he envisaged the product to be in manufacturing by the close of the yr and to be the norm in courtrooms in the room of “a few years”.