Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men Revives Era of Decadent Locks

SANTA CLARA, CA - The clock strikes 9 p.m. on Friday night and gentlemen clad in all styles of artificial hairpieces begin to arrive at their de facto headquarters, a house just off Santa Clara University’s campus known by its alias, Club Rio.

These fine members have their hairpieces on tight,

as they will shortly be House Johnson'd and only a

 hack would loose their hairpiece. 

Don’t be fooled by the young men with the mullets, rattails, and pageboy cuts gathering at Club Rio, this is no glam rock concert. No, this is the calm before the storm that will soon become the Tony Perkis Workout Extravaganza – the first party of the quarter hosted by the Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men.

Equipped with their finest hairpieces and their cheapest wine, beer, or liquor, the twenty-some male Santa Clara students comprising the group file in. They begin to pour drinks, achieving a healthy buzz before the festivities commemorating Tony Perkis – Ben Stiller’s character in the film Heavyweights, known for his magnificent long hair – are to start.

As guests constantly shuffle in and the drinks continue to flow, Club Rio becomes, as promised, a full-blown hairpiece extravaganza by midnight. Another success in the books for the Santa Clara Hairpiece Club For Men.

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The Tony Perkis Workout Extravaganza is but the latest in a long line of events put on by the Santa Clara Hairpiece Club For Men dating back to its inception. The name of the club connotes a tie to the university and a formal structure, but to be clear, this is simply a group of individuals that find mutual pleasure in a finely groomed hairpiece and a few glasses of chardonnay. In fact, the original members founded the loose organization in 2009 as a laidback, easy-going alternative to the established social options in college.

The transition from high school to college can be difficult to cope with. Finding a niche in an unfamiliar environment of new students and surroundings is a challenge that all incoming students must inevitably face. Perhaps most unsettling, there is no prescribed way to go about it.

Some turn to the Greek system to build their social structure, certain students join on-campus organizations, and others take up club sports. But this unique group at Santa Clara University spurned all the traditional avenues and found their social circle in the least likely of unifying factors: artificial hairpieces.

Turn On: Dudes in Hairpieces
Photo Courtesy of Bagel Johnson

One group of friends in Santa Clara’s class of 2011 started out as a mere collection of students just trying to find their place. Like so many others, they spent their weekend nights at house parties around Santa Clara letting the existing social scene call their shots.

“One day we hit Savers or some thrift store like that and just came across some wigs,” says Kurt Natter, a founding member of the group. “These things were hilarious, and we weren’t not going to buy them. It wasn’t too long until we started wearing them out at night and it just caught on.”

Alas, the Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men was born. Slowly but surely it began catering to a section of the student population fond of outlandish accessories but not so high on defined institutional structures.

The appeal of fraternities is bred from their promise of brotherhood and time-honored traditions. Campus groups are typically founded on social activism, shared aspirations, and a routine schedule of events. The Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men is unique not only in that it is centered on unorthodox accessories, but also in its uncharacteristically loose organization.

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“The spontaneity of it, the randomness. We don’t even have a defined set of members, just throw a hairpiece on and that’s pretty much it, see what happens,” says member Christian Workman. “Whenever anyone puts a hairpiece on it’s always a good time, always positive energy and that’s what we’re looking for in putting this together. It adds another dimension to our social life.”

The group has no official tie to the school, and for now that is how they would like to keep it. But just because the club’s members do not wish to formalize their status does not mean they are slouches when it come to their wigs. Of all accessories they could have chosen to identify with the hairpiece is far from arbitrary.

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“I’m not a fashion expert, but with the current state of male hair you tend to see shorter haircuts in comparison to the eras of the seventies and eighties,” Workman says. “Where’s the mullet? Where’s the greased-back hair? You don’t see that as much anymore. Nowadays it’s really more clean-cut, clean-shaven.”

The concept of the group is simple, yet poignant. Members meet up before an evening of hitting the town and grab their finest hairpieces in hopes of inspiring awe and astonishment. They then proceed to party the night away, channeling the essence of an era when the male hairdo was still provocative.

Though the title might suggest a drearily singular focus, the Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men has found ways to incorporate other elements while remaining true to their roots as hair enthusiasts. In their attempt to embody past decades the club has also added velour tracksuits, sunglasses, sparkly blazers, and visors to their repertoire at one time or another.

Similar hairpiece clubs are not popping up on campuses nationwide, at least not yet. But professor of social psychology at SCU, Dr. Amara Brook, is not surprised that this trend has materialized.

She's a Doctor, listen up.

“Whenever you get a countercultural organization like that, they tend to have a stronger bond and stick together,” says Dr. Brook. “When it’s such a stigmatizing and unusual trait as a false hairpiece, it will usually draw the group closer.”

The Santa Clara Hairpiece Club for Men could not agree more, as it continues to add new members intent on joining the lifestyle. Some call the club preposterous, others call it avant-garde, but the fact of the matter is that the inebriated men wearing hairpieces are here to stay.

----Post By Connor Witt