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

[legionseagle]

I particularly liked the green velvet bag that Anne had her hair in for archery.

[nineveh_uk]

That one is rather nice (in fact I rather like all the archery costumes). I have a weakness for the oval headdresses with a sort of transparent veil at the back, this being the only way I'm going to achieve the illusion of long hair.

[ankaret]

I will totally start a wimple craze with you. white_hart knitted me a snood a couple of years ago and I wear it all the time - I have various others bought from etsy, but that one is my favourite.

[antisoppist]

We could just start a cult/commune.

I have been wearing the tam-o-shanter I knitted for Daughter before she decided secondary school wasn't the place for it but it doesn't suit me and I have agonies working out what the top floppy bit is supposed to do. I like hats with brims but they do not fulfil the necessary function of keeping your ears warm. In Scandinavia I wore shawls - loose over head, warm round neck and crossed over chest under coat for extra body warmth - but I agree they have too much little old lady/religious cult/posh horsey person about them for 21st century rural England.

[white_hart]

Oh, that's a lovely thing to read!

[nineveh_uk]

We will begin the March of the Wimples! The world won't know what hit it. I suspect that I would look quite good in a snood, except that I haven't got any hair to put in one.

[nineveh_uk]

I can't do tam-o-shanters, either, or berets, though I do have a sort of woven cloth version that works. In summer I go for narrow brims. Perhaps the UK simply isn't cold enough for shawls to be a continuing mainstream option, but it is most dispiriting. I wish to look neither like a member of an anabaptist commune, Princess Anne, nor 93.

[antisoppist]

I wish to look neither like a member of an anabaptist commune, Princess Anne, nor 93.
:-))

Round here there is a sort of yummy mummy hunter wellies, waxed jacket and peaked cap thing going on but I do not want to be that either.

I am also slightly insulted that Small Daughter seized on my summer straw hat as the perfect thing for Dress Up As A Scarecrow day.

[ankaret]

It is an extremely lovely snood!

[ankaret]

Oh, God, them. Why would any woman want to cosplay as Captain Mark Philips circa 1989?

[ankaret]

That's the joy of snoods. As long as there's something to weight it at the bottom you can't tell.

[antisoppist]

Far be it from me to judge...

[nineveh_uk]

Fifty Shades of Green tweed?

[nineveh_uk]

Even if the hair in question is max 3" long, rather less at the nape?

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

This reminds me I need to catch up with this week's Wolf Hall...

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I've been using up yard stash by knitting tubes that can be worn either as scarves inside a coat or pulled up as hoods--they're really kind of pretty, and they take very little time to knit.

I watched The Shadow of the Tower--Henry VII's mum wore the cuckoo clock hat. Henry usually wore what I think of as a toque--like Queen Mary in the early 20th century. But I recently learned that Canadian tuques, far from being toques, are actually Jayne Hats.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

It keeps bugging me that Henry has only had one hat which has now lasted several years.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Thrift wasn't exactly a virtue he was known for (now, if it had been his dad ...).

[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.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Someone has to start the fashion craze. Step up, girl!

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

As a Canadian, I'm convinced that The Hat is clear indication that a) hockey continues to be played five hundred years in the future, and b) Jayne is really Canadian. Because, come on, how the hell else is he getting that hat?

(And as an aside: fourty years ago, I was taught to spell it as "tooque". No idea why.)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't noticed that.

But I had seen how men take their hats off - and, indeed, whether they take them off at all - as an indication of the degree of respect they are showing.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough my mother commented the other day that the hats make it more difficult for her to tell the men apart in the gloom.

Don't you think that you could carry off a beret at work? I've seen women wear them as part of their outfits rather than as warm outdoor wear.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It was very good again. Lots of Thomas More.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I've since caught up with it, and agree!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

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

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Yes, the gable hoods might as well be big flashing arrows saying "potential traitor here!"

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Is it a tuque? Is it a toque? No, it's a woolly montrosity with ear flaps!

It strikes me that Queen Mary must have few other memorable features, given that what everyone remembers her for is her hat.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

He does seem a bit keen on it. Perhaps it is comfy and he keeps having it remade.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

If you find wimples on all the catwalks next year, you'll know who to blame.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, berets are one of the hats that I look really stupid in! I suspect that it would come across as a bit weird if I were wearing one in the office, though.

Fascinator-ing Rhythm, Stop Pickin' On Me!

[executrix.livejournal.com]

With a few exceptions, the *contents* of royal heads are less interesting than their decorations.

There's a Kinks song called "She Wore a Hat Like Princess Marina."

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I would not presume to insult Canada by blaming it for Jayne.

Robertson Davies says "tuque," so I follow him.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Canada is full of Jaynes.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Fine by me. Gives me an excuse to hide the second chin.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I also think I'd suit a wimple! I used to admire myself in a mirror with my head stuck in the neck of a t-shirt to get the effect as a teenager. At least two of us would be happy if they came into fashion.

I got the first three Wolf Hall episodes before I came back and enjoyed them very much. I found the ebook in a folder I got from a friend, I may reread.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I guess everyplace is--he's not entirely wrong about "There ain't people like that, just people like me."

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

In This House of Brede does say they're one of the most flattering styles for women!