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A Perfectly Plausable French Hoodaka "What Happens When You Can't Stop Obsessing About Headgear" Step One: RESEARCHING THE FOUNDATIONMy latest project has been trying to figure out a historically correct construction method for the French Hood. There are numerous ways of constructing a French Hood, true, but for the most part, I believe they fall short of what was actually worn. Popular construction methods mostly lean towards wired and buckram-stiffened cresent shaped coronets, covered in silk and then edged with pearls or other embellishments to simulate the billiaments. Depending on the construction technique, this coronet piece is mounted to a foundation that is likewise constructed of wired buckram and covered with fabric. The effect is visually pretty close to the reference images, but I've always had a gut feeling that it's not historically accurate. Even my own attempts at making a plausbly period French Hood fell short of my expectations. The first surprise was when Missa sent me this sketch from Patterns Of Fashion ( 1 ) that I know I've overlooked at least a million times. It shows the effigy of Sir Richard Arlington's wife from behind, with the veil of her French Hood pulled up over the top of her head and exposing what appears to be a bag containing her hair. Inspired, I went flipping through Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd and found photos of the actual effigy ( 2 )taken at various angles ( 3 ). In addition, the tomb of Sir Richard Arlington also features other female figures sporting similar styled coifs under their French Hoods ( 4 ). The tomb itself dates to 1561, which is perfectly situated in my area of interest. Looking through QEWU, I found a few other intreguing examples of French Hoods depicted with this bag coif clearly visible under the veil. My particular favorite is a medal of Mary I,( 5 ) struck in 1555. This is one of the more useful representations of the French Hood in general, showing the billiaments resting almost directly on the crown of the head, rather than at the edge of a cresent-shaped coronet. I'll be dealing with this image more as I go about constructing the rest of the French Hood, but for now all I'm concered with is the bag coif shown under the veil. CONSTRUCTIONFor the coif, I used Lynn McMasters' biggins pattern from the Women's & Children's Elizabethan High Crowned Hat Pattern . The pattern for the biggins (pictured lower-most right hand corner on the cover of the package, in black which makes it kinda hard to see in the graphic) has a dip in the center of the band, but I straightened it out in order to make it more mid-period appropriate (to date, I haven't seen any evidence of the middle dip in the coif band prior to, oh, 1580 or so. The ones that do feature a dip in the center are constructed differently than this pattern). The resulting biggins/coif fits perfectly. I made it in the smallest size, since I have a fairly small head, and it's snug; the sides hug my jaw line without any additional wiring or stiffening and it looks like the coifs I figure were worn under French Hoods from 1540-1565. It even stays on the head without additional chin straps or pins! That might change once I try to anchor all the weight of a French Hood on top of it, but it holds its shape on its own. The fabric is white silk taffeta. The pattern calls for 1/2 yard of fabric and contains no stiffening such as buckram, millinery wire or interfacing. The one small quibble I had with the pattern was that it suggests cutting the band on the cross. When I went to sew the final version out of the silk, I found that the band was subject to warping from the stitches. I cut a second band on the straight of grain and this problem went away. I am quite pleased with this pattern, all in all. It comes very close to the images of the coif I referenced above.
Putting It To The Test A theory is all well and good, but obviously, it has to be tested at some point. I'd had the necessary elements (fake hair, coif, bobby pins, accordian pleated gold organza, veil and billiaments) for quite some time before finally deciding to put them all together. After a few false starts, I discovered one big thing: My hair in its natural state is very slippery. Now, I've known about this for my entire life, but it never really hit home until I had to try my French Hood theory out. When I first pinned the false braid to my head, put the coif on over it and then tried the veil, the weight of the veil coupled with the slipperyness of my real hair and the instability of the false braid caused the whole thing to slide off. I tried taping the braid to my head... Didn't work. In a fit of desperation, I grabbed my strongest hairspray and applied it liberally to my head before repinning the braid in place. Miraculously, it gave my hair enough "grab" to hold the entire structure of the French Hood securely! Below are pictures of the various components:
The braid is pinned to the crown of my head in order to make the French Hood "shape". The coif is unstiffened, and pulled over the head. It stays secure thanks to a bendy-clip (I don't know the real term for these things) sewn to the center front of the band and fastened to my real hair. It prevents the coif from slipping back down my head. The veil is pinned with three pins to the braid, through the coif, at the center and sides; this is the only method of securing the veil needed. It's pinned at the nape of my neck and that creates a counter-point to balance the whole structure on my head. The billiaments are strung on heavy millinery wire and then sewn to the edge of the veil. This gives the veil enough structure and stiffness so that no other stiffening is necessary.
SOURCES: 1. Detail of Sketch of tomb of Richard Alington & wife, 1561 pg. 122, fig. 56C. Patterns of Fashion, 1560-1600
2. Detail of tomb of Richard Alington & wife, 1561 pg. 134, fig. 213Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd
3. Detail of tomb of Richard Alington & wife, 1561 pg. 135, fig. 213b Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd
4. Detail of tomb of Richard Alington & wife, 1561 pg. 58, fig. 98 Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd
5. "Mary Tudor", Silver gilt medal by Jacopo Trezzo, 1555. British Museum, London
LINKS Period Hat Patterns by Lynn McMasters Elizabethan Costuming Page - Hats & Headgear Links © 2004 Sarah Lorraine Goodman |
