Hair Highway

Hair Highway reimagines the ancient Silk Road through a modern material: human hair. With global demand rising and China as the world’s largest hair exporter, Studio Swine explores hair as an abundant, renewable resource beyond the beauty industry.

By combining hair with natural resin, they developed a sustainable alternative to the planet’s diminishing natural resources with an aesthetic that echoes tortoiseshell tones and the grain of polished horn or exotic hardwood. The result is a collection of objects inspired by 1930s Shanghai Deco.

The film traces this journey in China’s Shandong province — from individuals selling their hair, through merchants, markets, and factories, to the final decorative pieces created by Studio Swine.