Lawyers in the UK wear wigs because the legal profession adopted them as 17th-century fashion under Charles II and then simply never stopped, long after the rest of society moved on. What was once ordinary headwear for anyone with social standing became, through sheer persistence, a uniform. Today the wig survives mainly in criminal proceedings in the higher courts, kept alive by arguments about anonymity, impartiality, and the seriousness of what happens in those rooms.
A Fashion That Outlived Its Fashion
Wigs entered English courts for an unremarkable reason: everyone who could afford one wore them. When Charles II returned from exile in France in 1660, he brought the style with him, and polite society followed. Judges actually resisted at first. Portraits from the early 1680s still show them wearing their own hair, and wigs weren’t adopted across the bench until around 1685.1Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. History of Court Dress
By the late 18th century, powdered wigs were going out of fashion across Europe, pushed along by the cultural backlash against aristocratic display after the French Revolution. Doctors, clergy, merchants, and gentlemen generally stopped wearing them. Lawyers did not. What had started as a way of fitting in gradually became a way of standing apart, and by the 19th century the wig was no longer something barristers wore because everyone did. It was something that marked them out.
What Supporters Say the Wig Is For
Those who want wigs kept point to three functions.
The first is anonymity. A barrister who has just prosecuted a gang member, or a judge who has just handed down a long sentence, blends in with every other wigged figure in court. Out on the street, without the wig, they are harder to recognize. Judges have cited personal security as a reason to keep the tradition in criminal cases specifically.
The second is impartiality, or at least the appearance of it. The wig creates visual distance between the person and the role. A barrister in court dress is doing a job on behalf of the justice system rather than acting as a private individual with private views about the defendant. Whether the wig genuinely produces that detachment or only performs it is the heart of the long-running argument about whether to keep it.
The third is gravity. Criminal trials deal with liberty, and formal court dress signals to everyone in the room that something serious is happening. Proponents say the formality helps maintain order and respect for the process.
Where Wigs Are Still Worn
Wigs appear in a narrower slice of English courtrooms than most people assume. The requirement, set out in the Bar Council’s court dress guidance, applies to barristers and judges in criminal proceedings in the higher courts, particularly the Crown Court. The general principle is simple: if the judge is robed, counsel should be robed too.2Bar Council. Court Dress Guidance Final July 2025
Solicitors never wear wigs, even solicitor-advocates who now have rights of audience in the higher courts. The wig has historically marked out the barrister’s distinct role as a courtroom advocate, and that visual split between the two branches of the profession remains.
The big retreat came in 2007, when Lord Phillips, then Lord Chief Justice, announced that judges in civil and family cases would stop wearing wigs, collars, and bands from January 2008. Advocates followed. That change took wigs out of most non-criminal courtroom work at a single stroke. When the UK Supreme Court opened in October 2009, replacing the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, its justices adopted ordinary business attire from the start, continuing the Law Lords’ practice of dressing as legislators rather than judges.
Even in Crown Court trials, wigs can come off. Section 26 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 lets a judge make a special measures direction requiring wigs and gowns to be dispensed with while a child or vulnerable witness gives evidence, so the courtroom is less intimidating for someone already in a difficult position.3legislation.gov.uk. Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 – Section 26
Rules in Scotland and Northern Ireland differ. Scotland has moved further away from wigs, with a 2019 Practice Note confirming that counsel and solicitors in the Outer House of the Court of Session are not expected to wear them. Northern Ireland retains wigs more broadly, roughly along the lines of the older English practice before 2008.
Who Doesn’t Have to Wear One
Even where wigs are required, not every barrister wears one. The Bar Council’s guidance, updated in July 2025, sets out a range of exemptions.
Religious exemptions have existed for years. Turban-wearing Sikhs are not required to wear wigs. Barristers who wear headscarves, including Muslim women wearing hijab, are likewise exempt, though the guidance specifies that headscarves should be dark, dark grey, or dark blue. Jewish barristers may wear a kippah, including underneath a wig where court dress is required.2Bar Council. Court Dress Guidance Final July 2025 Clothing worn as a requirement or emblem of faith is permitted more generally.
The 2025 update went further. Barristers whose ethnic hairstyle traditions make a wig uncomfortable or impractical can dispense with it, with no formal application required. New dispensations based on race, sex, and disability were introduced for a three-year trial period, including provisions for pregnancy and menopause.4Bar Council. Update on Court Dress and Wigs Guidance Barristers with a disability that makes standard court dress impossible or uncomfortable can apply for a dispensation certificate to adjust their attire, including not wearing a wig.
Will the Tradition Last
Whether wigs should survive at all has been argued for decades, and public opinion has been consistent. A 2003 Lord Chancellor’s consultation on court working dress surveyed more than 2,000 people. Two in three wanted wigs scrapped outside criminal cases. Only about a third thought barristers should wear them at all. But 68 percent wanted criminal judges to keep theirs.
Critics call wigs an anachronism that makes courts look stuffy and remote. Supporters say they add dignity, help keep order, and provide a measure of personal security through anonymity. The commercial court had already voted to drop wigs more than a decade before the 2003 consultation, on the view that the old-fashioned image was putting off international litigants.
The 2025 exemptions mark the newest shift. Rather than abolishing wigs, the Bar Council has made it easier for individual barristers to opt out on grounds of religion, ethnicity, disability, pregnancy, or menopause. Whether that gradual approach eventually hollows the tradition out or settles into a stable equilibrium is something the three-year trial will begin to answer. For now, the white horsehair wig remains the single most recognizable symbol of English law, worn daily in Crown Courts by barristers who will tell you, with varying conviction, that it still means something.