Artist appeals for help after losing ‘irreplaceable’ Donald Trump wig

An award-winning artist is appealing for help after claiming she lost a one-of-a-kind Donald Trump wig she says is worth thousands of pounds and took months to make.

Alison Jackson, who photographs lookalikes of famous people in compromising situations as a commentary on celebrity culture, made the appeal on her Instagram account on Tuesday after apparently leaving the hairpiece in a black cab in London’s Leicester Square.

“I’ve got to have it back. Please. It’s got a[n] orange quiff and it looks like Donald Trump’s hair,” Ms Jackson said in the video.

The wig was fitted on a wig maker’s block inside a black bin liner, she told the Press Association, and is made of human hair which was dyed, cut and styled to be as close to the real US president’s barnet as possible.

It was intended to be worn by a Trump lookalike who will appear in Ms Jackson’s Leicester Square show next week.

“He’s very attached to it, he doesn’t like to take it off,” she told the Press Association.

“It’s extraordinary what happens, one minute he’s nobody and suddenly he’s got the wig on and he’s a complete and utter star.

“That wig is part of his stardom, and probably Donald Trump’s himself.”

Without it, he is just “an overweight, bald, normal-looking guy”, she added, referring to the lookalike.

“It’s the wig that makes the man.”

Ms Jackson reported the loss to Transport for London but has yet to hear anything back

A TfL spokesman could not confirm if any wigs had been handed in but urged anyone who loses belongings on the transport network to contact the lost property office.

As well as the official report and social media appeal, Ms Jackson said she had been putting up signs on lampposts to ask for any sightings “like a lost cat”.

The hairpiece took 15 stylists more than six months to make, she claimed, following detailed research into 1960s hairstyles and “diagrams of how to do it on the internet”.

Ms Jackson first rose to prominence in the 1990s after producing photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al-Fayed lookalikes with a mixed-race child.

She won a Bafta for her 2002 BBC show Doubletake, which featured celebrity lookalikes in embarrassing situations and, more recently, she organised a protest rally with the Trump lookalike and scantily clad women in Manhattan ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

“I just need it back is the main thing,” she said of the wig.

“If nobody comes back from TfL or the taxi lost property office then I’m completely stuck.

“It’s been missing since 10 in the morning and the show opens on Tuesday with the Donald Trump lookalike.

“He would be so upset to arrive in England and find that there’s no wig.”