In 1944 designer Oliver Messel was released from his war duties to work on the film Caesar and Cleopatra, adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play. Messel was responsible for the costumes and the interior of the sets, imaginatively interpreting Roman Egyptian dress and decor in the context of the mid 1940s. The film cost over £1 million and brought a welcome sense of extravagance and colour into a drab post-war world.

Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) played the role of Cleopatra. Messel designed a number of wigs for her, each in an instantly recognisable Egyptian style. This wig and headdress are designed to look realistic in close-up but only have details on the parts that show. The head covering, made of blue leather 'lotus' shapes, is not separate but is sewn to the hair to keep it in place and the hair itself is divided into three bunches, one hanging over each shoulder and one down the back, which are covered in black net to prevent them catching on the lotuses. At the forehead the hair is trimmed but not styled as it is hidden by more lotuses attached to the front of the gold headdress.

Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain's leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, working in every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic designs, informed by period styles, were perfectly in tune with his times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, Messel's style had become unfashionable, having no sympathy with the new 'kitchen sink' school of theatre. He increasingly concentrated on non-theatrical painting and designing and eventually retired to the Caribbean, where he began a new career designing and building highly idiosyncratic luxury villas.