A beautiful crown!
With status comes prestige and with prestige comes fashion. One of the most common pieces of women’s fashion since time immemorial is the head piece. Be it metallic, mesh-work, fringed or made with precious stones, the headpiece has been long associated with royalty. It also has religious significance. A head piece, worn for decoration or protection, is typically a thin metallic crown, headband, or tiara worn around the forehead.
The headpiece has been around since the Egyptian era. Pharaohs and their queens sported headpieces, the importance of which has gone down in history for their design and beauty. Costumes got elaborate during the 15th century and so did the head dress. During the Renaissance period hats, hoods and other head dresses were quite the in thing. These were often jeweled. But it was in Italy first, that women were seen adorning their head pieces with pearls, beads and semiprecious stones. By the dawn of 16th century, women started wearing hats and caps with feathers, jewels and laces. In fact, Queen Mary of Scots often wore the “attifet”, a fine lace cap lined with pearls. Another big fashion of that time was the “caul”, which was a net and silk cap that covered tied up hair and could be decorated with jewels or something sparkly. By the end of 16th century, women of Western Europe, donned their hair with ostrich feathers, Cavalier-style.
By the turn of the 17th century, women stopped wearing hats and turned their attention to practical head dresses like bonnets or hoods with ribbon for decoration. However, during the end of 17th century, tall headdresses became the thing, especially in France. Pictures of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, show a very elaborate head dress, and these designs became even taller and began to be covered in lace and silk as the fashion grew in Europe.
Later in the 18th century, British women dressed their elaborate hair styles with ribbon, feathers and butterflies. Women who were experts in dressing the hair were known as ‘Milliners’ and were hired by British women of status to dress them up for special occasions or even simple outings. The French headdress became more outrageous! Fashionable women inspired by
Marie Antoinette experimented with head dresses. Some of the most outrageous items placed in the hair included miniature garden landscapes, animals and even human figure.
Come 19th century, head dresses became way simpler. Hats became smaller decorated with sea shells, beads and flowers instead of jewelry. The century saw the emergence of the ‘cocktail hat’ that was small, delicate, lacy and of various colors to match the outfits of the times. In modern times, milliners like Stephen Jones,
Philip Treacy have given masterpieces to users. Even fashion moguls like Galliano, Gaultier and Lacroix have given designs of head pieces that compete full on with their one dress collections. But the brownie goes to John Galliano’s Maison Margiela that debuted a few years back and soon became the most Instagram-ed haute couture ever.
Match your headpiece from Beverlyheels.com with a simple cut knee length dress, trench coat or even an evening gown.
