In a lofty office in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Shani Lechan gives her clients the hair of their dreams. It usually takes only a couple of weeks.
In one room she offers initial consultations, taking their measurements and learning about their preferences. A few months later, they’ll visit a second room, where Ms. Lechan will makes sure everything is the perfect fit.
The Shani Wigs office is painted cream with a concretelike finish, the molding is elegant, the windows are floor-to-ceiling and there is a marble fireplace in the waiting room. Not far away, a tufted pink space cloud of a sofa provides a place for visitors to sit as they wait for an audience with the wig maker.
In this minimalist, Kardashianesque space, Ms. Lechan, 31, greets customers from around the world: Los Angeles, Florida, India, Turkey, South Williamsburg. Some are Orthodox Jewish women; others are cancer patients; at least one is an international supermodel (that would be Naomi Campbell). All of the women come for the same thing: an undetectable, sumptuous human hair wig. The price tag can range from $5,000 to $18,000.
Wigs are everywhere. To the untrained eye, they might not seem to be as popular as they were in the 1960s or ’70s, when they were worn by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Cher and Diana Ross. But today, many wigs and toppers go undetected on red carpets, at galas, in movies and on magazine covers — provided, of course, that they’re good enough.
