Headgear

[nineveh_uk]

One of the many things I am enjoying about the BBC’s current adaptation of Wolf Hall is the proliferation of hats, caps, and headdresses for women, men, and children*. Finally! A costume drama in which people are not all waltzing around with their hair loose over the place.

I am particularly in mind of this today because I had my hair cut this morning, and as a rather cold-blooded person find myself as a result more than usually chilly despite the cashmere jumper, wool cardigan, and central heating**. So in the course of bemoaning that in days of yore I could have put a cap on, I realised that there was nothing actually stopping me tying a silk scarf round my head. So I did. I look as if I were promoting industrialization in the former USSR, but at least I am a bit warmer. Sadly, I don’t think that this is an option at work unless I want to look as if I have joined a religious cult. It is tragic in that frankly I look rather good in a cap/scarf/wimple and have no chance to wear one in public, whereas I do not look great in hats. I can put hope that 2016 brings a sudden fashion craze.

*One notes that Benjamin Hill’s wonderful Duke of Norfolk, a man who would undoubtedly consider himself none of the above, is bare-headed a good deal more than the average.

**The latter would be more effective if there weren’t a giant hole in the sitting room ceiling caused by the stairs running up there. If I owned the place I would glaze the stairwell within the first week. I would also put a better radiator in the kitchen.

Comments

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

I am really looking forward to seeing it, especially now that I know about the lack of anachronistic flowing locks! (I keep hoping that the people who design covers for historical novels will one day decide to make their products stand out by putting their heroines in accurate headgear, veils included). It's a shame that Henry is still stuck with that black hat with the feather, though -- rather like how Anne Boleyn is so often portrayed as being wedded to that "B" necklace just because she happened to wear it in the one portrait.

Do the men have historically accurate haircuts? Because as nice as it would be to see, there's no way to make the late-Plantagenet/early Tudor pageboy bob for middle-aged men look good.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

One of the (many) plus points of the first Blackadder series was the historically accurate hairstyles.