1485-1600 - Women's Hair & Headdresses As Shown In
'English Costume History by Dion Clayton Calthrop'
This costume history page is about hair fashion history. It consists of a selection of women only
headdresses and hairstyles from the Tudor/Elizabethan eras with illustrations
and original text from Calthrop's
English Costume.
This page is about female headdresses and hairstyles for the
medieval era 1485-1600. Later eras of hairdressing and headdresses are shown on
other pages. For the Introduction to this book see this
introduction written by Dion Clayton Calthrop. My comments are in italics.
This is a sumptuous gown in rich elaborate material - good stuff -
not any old fabric. Notice the diamond-shaped head-dress, the wide, fur-edged gown with its
full sleeves.
THE WOMEN
Take up a pack of cards and look at the queen.
You may see the
extraordinary head-gear as worn by ladies at the end of the fifteenth
century and in the first years of the sixteenth, worn in a modified form
all through the next reign, after which that description of head-dress
vanished for ever, its place to be taken by caps, hats, and bonnets.
The richest of these head-dresses were made of a black silk or some such
black material, the top stiffened to the shape of a sloping house-roof,
the edges falling by the face on either side - made stiff, so as to stand
parallel - these were sewn with gold and pearls on colour or white.
The
end of the hood hung over the shoulders and down the back; this was
surmounted by a stole of stiffened material, also richly sewn with
jewels, and the whole pinned on to a close-fitting cap of a different
colour, the edge of which showed above the forehead.
The more moderate head-dress was of black again, but in shape nearly
square, and slit at the sides to enable it to hang more easily over the shoulders. It was placed over a coif, often of white linen or of
black material, was turned over from the forehead, folded, and pinned
back; often it was edged with gold.
On either side of the hood were hanging ornamental metal-tipped tags to
tie back the hood from the shoulders, and this became, in time - that is,
at the end of the reign - the ordinary manner of wearing them, till they
were finally made up so.
The ordinary head-dress was of white linen, crimped or embroidered in
white, made in a piece to hang over the shoulders and down the back,
folded back and stiffened in front to that peculiar triangular shape in
fashion; this was worn by the older women over a white hood.
The plain coif, or close-fitting linen cap, was the most general wear
for the poor and middle classes.
The hair was worn long and naturally over the shoulders by young girls,
and plainly parted in the centre and dressed close to the head by women
wearing the large head-dress.
Another form of head-dress, less common, was the turban - a loose bag of
silk, gold and pearl embroidered, fitting over the hair and
forehead tightly, and loose above.
The woman wears a plain but rich looking dress and on her head a peculiar head-dress
with a pad support of
silk in front to hold it from the forehead. The half-sleeves are clearly
visible.
Bit by bit, inch by
inch, the plain fabric has become enriched, each succeeding step in an
elaboration of the simple form; the border next to the face is turned
back, then the hood is lined with fine stuff and the turnover shows this
to advantage; then the sides are split and the back is made more full;
then a tag is sewn on to the sides by which means the cut side may
be fastened off the shoulders.
The front is now stiffened and shaped at
an angle, this front is sewn with jewels, and, as the angle forms a gap
between the forehead and the point of the hood, a pad is added to fill
in the vacant space.
At last one arrives at the diamond-shaped
head-dress worn in this reign, and, in this reign, elaborated in every
way, elaborated, in fact, out of existence.
In order to make the
head-dress in its 1509 state you must make the white lining with the
jewelled turnover as a separate cap. However, I think that the drawings
speak for themselves more plainly than I can write.
Every device for crowding jewels together was used,
criss-cross, in groups of small numbers, in great masses.
One sees by the tortured and twisted German fashion that the hair was
plaited, and so, in curves and twists, dropped into coarse gold-web nets, thrust into web nets with velvet pouches to them, so that the hair
stuck out behind in a great knob, or at the side in two protuberances;
over all a cap like to the man's, but that it was infinitely more
feathered and jewelled.
Then, again, they wore those hideous barbes or
beard-like linen cloths, over the chin, and an infinite variety of caps
of linen upon their heads - caps which showed always the form of the head
beneath.
These hoods
worn by the women, these wide sleeves to the gowns, these hanging
sleeves to the overcoats, the velvet slip of under-dress, all, in their
time, became falsified into ready-made articles.
With the hoods you can
see for yourselves how they lend themselves by their shape to personal
taste; they were made up, all ready sewn; where pins had been used, the
folds of velvet at the back were made steadfast, the crimp of the white
linen was determined, the angle of the side-flap ruled by some unwritten
law of mode.
In the end, by a process of evolution, the diamond shape
disappeared, and the cap was placed further back on the head, the
contour being circular where it had previously been pointed.
The velvet
hanging-piece remained at the back of the head, but was smaller,
in one piece, and was never pinned up, and the entire shape gradually
altered towards, and finally into, the well-known
Mary Queen of Scots
head-dress, with which every reader must be familiar.
For the women, it may be said that the change towards simplicity is even
more marked. The very elaborate head-dress, the folded, diamond-shaped
French hood has disappeared almost entirely, and, for the rich, the half
hoop, set back from the forehead with a piece of velvet or silk to hang
down the back, will best describe the head-gear. From that to the
centre-pointed hoop shows the trend of the shape.
Wearing flowers in the opening of the dress was a frequent habit at
this time. The fashion was begun in this reign. This dress lays the
silhouette and styling of the
later Elizabethan fashion which were an exaggeration of
gowns such as this example.
Women wear neat linen caps, made very plain and close to the head, with
small ear-pieces.
On the shoulders there is a fashion of wearing kerchiefs of linen or
silk, white as a rule; white, in fact, is frequently used for dresses,
both for men and women.
You will realize that to one born in the reign of
Henry VIII the
appearance of people now was very different, and, to anyone as far away
as we are now, the intervening reigns of
Edward and
Mary are interesting
as showing the wonderful quiet change that could take place in
those few years, and alter man's exterior from the appearance of a
playing-card, stiff, square, blob-footed, to the doublet and hose person
with a cart-wheel of a ruff, which recalls to us
Elizabethan dress.
Now this is the reign of the ruff and the monstrous hoop and the wired
hair.
As a companion to her lord, who came from the hands of his barber
with his hair after the Italian manner, short and round and curled in
front and frizzed, or like a Spaniard, long hair at his ears curled at
the two ends, or with a French love-lock dangling down his shoulders,
she - his lady - sits under the hands of her maid, and tries various attires
of false hair, principally of a yellow colour.
Every now and again she
consults the looking-glass hanging on her girdle; sometimes she dresses
her hair with chains of gold, from which jewels or gold-work tassels
hang; sometimes she, too, allows a love-lock to rest upon her shoulder,
or fall negligently on her ruff.
The openwork lace bonnet, of the shape so well known by the portraits of
Queen Mary of Scotland, is not possible to exactly describe in writing;
one variety of it may be seen in the line drawing given. It is made of
cambric and cut lace sewn on to wires bent into the shape required.
In such a time of extravagance in fashion the additions one may make
to any form of dress in the way of ribbons, bows, sewn pearls, cuts,
slashes, and puffs are without number.
The hair, for
example, can be dressed with pearls, rings of gold, strings of pearls,
feathers, or glass ornaments. Men and women wore monstrous earrings, but
curiously enough this fashion was more common to men than women.
Hats were interchangeable, more especially the trim hat with a feather,
in shape like those worn by the Yeoman of the Guard, but smaller.
The shoulder pinions of the jerkins were puffed, slashed, and beribboned
in every way.
The wing sleeves, open from the shoulder all the way down,
were so long sometimes as to reach the ground, and were left hanging in
front, or thrown back over the shoulders, the better to display the rich
under-sleeve.
Ladies went masked about the streets and in the theatres, or if they
wished to be unconventional, they sat in the playing booths unmasked,
their painted faces exposed to the public gaze.
She is taking more readily to the man's hat, feathered and banded, and
in so doing is forced to dress her hair more simply and do away with
jewellery on her forehead; but, as is often the case, she dresses her
hair with plumes and jewels and little linen or lace ruffs, and atop of
all wears a linen cap with side wings to it and a peak in the centre.
Her ruff is now, most generally, in the form of an upstanding collar to
her dress, open in front, finishing on her shoulders with some neat bow
or other ornament.
It is of lace of very fine workmanship, edged plain
and square, or in all manner of fancy scallops, circles, and points.
Sometimes she will wear both ruff and collar, the ruff underneath to
prop up her collar at the back to the required modish angle.
Sometimes
her bodice will finish off in a double Catherine-wheel.
As the reign died, so did its fashions die also: padded breeches lost
some of their bombast, ruffs much of their starch, and
fardingales much
of their circumference, and the lady became more Elizabethan in
appearance, wore a roll under her hair in front, and a small hood with a
jewelled frontlet on her forehead.
It was the last of the Tudor dress,
and came, as the last flicker of a candle, before the new mode,
Fashion's next footstep.
Her maid is a deal more simple; her hair is dressed very plainly, a loop
by the ears, a twist at the nape of the neck. She has a shawl over her
shoulders, or a broad falling collar of white linen.
She has no fardingale, but her skirts are full. Her bodice fits, but is not
stiffened artificially; her sleeves are tight and neat, and her cuffs
plain. Upon her head is a broad-brimmed plain hat.
This costume history page is about hair fashion history. It consists of a selection of women only
headdresses and hairstyles from the Tudor/Elizabethan eras with illustrations
and original text from Calthrop's
English Costume.
This page is about female headdresses and hairstyles for the
medieval era 1485-1600. Later eras of hairdressing and headdresses are shown on
other pages. For the Introduction to this book see this
introduction written by Dion Clayton Calthrop. My comments are in italics.
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This costume history page is about hair fashion history. It consists of a selection of women only
headdresses and hairstyles from the Tudor/Elizabethan eras with illustrations
and original text from Calthrop's
English Costume. 
Her maid is a deal more simple; her hair is dressed very plainly, a loop
by the ears, a twist at the nape of the neck. She has a shawl over her
shoulders, or a broad falling collar of white linen. 
