Workers are turning the processed hair into hair pieces for the next step of weaving to the hair net.
After the hair has been processed, the work is only half done. Workers need to sew hair to the hairnet, one is to sew the machine like a stapler, and the other is to hand-knit.
A full-hand-woven headband requires workers to hook one stitch and one thread to the artificial scalp. A needle eye hook ranges from 2 to 3 hairs. The entire headband needs to hook at least 23,000 stitches.
It takes 20 days for a full-hand-made wig to be completed by even a skilled worker, and its price naturally starts at 1,000 yuan, and expensive ones can sell for tens of thousands of yuan. The workers responsible for full-hand weaving are also the highest paid workers in the factory. They can earn four or five thousand yuan a month.
Everything Li Yidi witnessed in Xuchang is just one part of the global trade of wigs. These mechanisms and hand-woven hair sets will be carefully put on hair nets and protective bags after completion and sold to black people in the United States, Europe and Africa.
Workers hooking wigs to hairnets.
Hooked a half of the hair net, unfinished.
Xu Chang’s wig was able to find its place in the global market. On the one hand, it benefited from the black people’s demand for wigs, and on the other hand, it was a microcosm of how e-commerce and international trade operate today.
