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

The initial batch of vegan court docket wigs are staying trialled just after a barrister marketed 10 hemp-dependent headpieces to colleagues who commonly use kinds produced of horsehair.

Samuel March, a junior barrister at 9 King’s Bench Stroll, explained his ambition to shake-up the Bar’s 200-12 months-previous 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 examination of time with a modest number of barristers before he pushes in advance with a larger sized launch.

He reported: “Hemp is a notoriously challenging material so I do not foresee there staying any troubles, but there is generally a possibility the place you’re the initially in the earth to consider something. Building them below [in the UK] on this scale and price tag point implies my market is mainly confined to vegan barristers, which is a modest industry – but a single that I intend to retain advertising to.”

He reported he offered the first batch of wigs through social media and “robing room phrase of mouth” but is exploring selling foreseeable future batches via the UK’s very first authorized clothes shop for gals, Ivy & Normanton.

The Cambridge-graduate very first unveiled his designs for a biodegradable hemp wig on social media a year in the past, when he posted on Twitter and Linkedin: “The prototype has arrived. This is the world’s very first hemp barrister’s wig. 0pc horsehair, 100computer vegan friendly”.

At the time, he envisaged the products to be in manufacturing by the conclusion of the calendar year and to be the norm in courtrooms in the house of “a few years”.