CURIOUS HEADGEAR.
"Here in her hair
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men
Faster than gnats in cobwebs."
_The Merchant of Venice._
[Illustration: ANCIENT JEWISH HEAD-DRESS.]
Holy Writ simply teems with allusions to the luxurious tresses of the
fair daughters of the East, and there is little doubt that at an early
period in the world's history women awakened to the fact that a
well-tired head was a very potent attraction, and had a recognised
market value. Jewish women were particularly famed in this respect, and
employed female barbers, who, with the aid of crisping pins, horns, and
towers, prepared their clients for conquest. These jewelled horns were
generally made of the precious metals, and the position denoted the
condition of the wearer. A married woman had it fixed on the right side
of the head, a widow on the left, and she who was still an
unappropriated blessing on the crown. Over the horn the veil was thrown
coquettishly, as in the illustration. Assyrian women delighted in long
ringlets, confined by a band of metal, and the men were not above the
weakness of plaiting gold wire with their beards. Rimmel, in "The Book
of Perfumes," relates a curious anecdote of Mausolus, King of Caria, who
turned his people's fondness for flowing locks to account when his
exchequer required replenishing. "Having first had a quantity of wigs
made and stored in the royal warehouses, he published an edict
compelling all his subjects to have their heads shaved. A few days
after, the monarch's agents went round, offering them the perukes
destined to cover their denuded polls, which they were delighted to buy
at any price". It is not surprising that Artemisia could not console
herself for the loss of such a clever husband, and that, not satisfied
with drinking his ashes dissolved in wine, she spent some of her
lamented lord's ill-gotten revenue in building such a monument to his
memory that it was counted one of the wonders of the world.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN HEAD-DRESS.]
The Egyptians were also partial to wigs, some of which are still
preserved in the British Museum. Ladies wore a multitude of small plaits
and jewelled head-pieces resembling peacocks and other animals, which
contrasted with their dark tresses with brilliant effect; or a fillet
ornamented with a lotus bud. The coiffure of a princess was remarkable
for its size and the abundance of animal, vegetable, and mineral
treasures with which it was adorned. In Egyptian tombs and elsewhere
have been discovered small wooden combs resembling the modern
tooth-comb, and metal mirrors of precisely the same shape as those in
use at the present day, as well as numerous other toilet appliances.
[Illustration: ANCIENT GRECIAN.]
Grecian sculpture affords us the opportunity of studying the different
modes in favour in that country, and it is astonishing to find what a
variety of methods were adopted by the belles of ancient Greece for
enhancing their charms. A loose knot, fastened by a clasp in the form of
a grasshopper, was a favourite fashion. Cauls of network, metal mitres
of different designs, and simple bands, and sometimes chaplets, of
flowers, all confined at different periods, the luxuriant locks of the
Helens, Penelopes, and Xantippes of ancient times.
[Illustration: ANCIENT ROMAN.]
It was a common custom among heathen nations to consecrate to their gods
the hair when cut off, as well as that growing on the head, and it was
either consumed on the altar, deposited in temples, or hung upon the
trees. A famous instance of the consecration of hair is that of
Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Evergetes. It is related that when the
king went on his expedition to Syria, she, solicitous for his safety,
made a vow to consecrate her hair (which was remarkable for its fineness
and beauty) to Venus, if he returned to her. When her husband came back
she kept her word, and offered her hair in the temple of Cyprus. This
was afterwards missing, when a report was spread that it had been turned
into a constellation in the heavens, which constellation, an old writer
tells us, is called _Coma Berenices_ (the hair of Berenice) to the
present day. Another remarkable instance is that of Nero, who, according
to Suetonius, cut off his first beard, put it in a casket of gold set
with jewels, and consecrated it to Jupiter Capitolinus.
[Illustration: ENGLISH HEAD-DRESS OF THE 13TH CENTURY.]
The hair of the head and beard appears to have been held in great
respect by most nations, and perhaps we may trace the use of human hair
in spells and incantations to this fact. Orientals especially treat the
hair which falls from them with superstitious care, and bury it, so
that no one shall use it to their prejudice.
[Illustration: HORNED HEAD-DRESS OF 15TH CENTURY.
_From Effigy of Countess of Arundel in Arundel Church._]
Roman matrons generally preferred blonde hair to their own ebon tresses,
and resorted to wigs and dye when Nature, as they considered, had
treated them unkindly. Ovid rebukes a lady of his acquaintance in the
plainest terms for having destroyed her hair.
[Illustration: STEEPLE HEAD-DRESS OF 15TH CENTURY.]
"Did I not tell you to leave off dyeing your hair? Now you have no hair
left to dye: and yet nothing was handsomer than your locks: they came
down to your knees, and were so fine that you were afraid to comb them.
Your own hand has been the cause of the loss you deplore: you poured the
poison on your own head. Now Germany will send you slaves' hair--a
vanquished nation will supply your ornament. How many times, when you
hear people praising the beauty of your hair, you will blush and say to
yourself: 'It is bought ornament to which I owe my beauty, and I know
not what Sicambrian virgin they are admiring in me. And yet there was a
time when I deserved all these compliments.'"
[Illustration: EARLY TUDOR HEAD-DRESS.]
It would puzzle any _fin de siecle_ husband or brother to express his
displeasure in more appropriate words than those chosen by the poet.
The Britons, before they mixed with other nations, were a fair-haired
race, and early writers referred to their washing their auburn tresses
in water boiled with lime to increase the reddish colour. Boadicea is
described with flowing locks which fell upon her shoulders; but after
the Roman Invasion the hair of both men and women followed the fashion
of the conquerors.
[Illustration: HORNED HEAD-DRESS OF EDWARD IV.'s REIGN.]
From Planche's "History of British Costume," we learn that "the female
head-dress among all classes of the Anglo-Saxons was a long piece of
linen or silk wrapped round the head and neck." It appears to have been
called a head-rail, or wimple, but was dispensed with in the house, as
the hair was then as cherished an ornament as at the present day. A wife
described by Adhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, who wrote in the eighth
century, is said to have had "twisted locks, delicately curled by the
iron;" and in the poem of "Judith" the heroine is called "the maid of
the Creator, with twisted locks." Two long plaits were worn by Norman
ladies, and were probably adopted by our own countrywomen after the
Conquest.
During the Middle Ages feminine head-gear underwent many changes.
Golden nets, and linen bands closely pinned round the hair and chin,
were followed by steeple-shaped erections and horned head-dresses in a
variety of shapes, of which the accompanying sketches will give a better
idea than any written description.
During the sixteenth century matrons adopted either a pointed hood,
composed of velvet or other rich fabric, often edged with fur, a
close-fitting coif, or the French cap to be seen in the portraits of the
unhappy Mary Stuart. Those who were unmarried had their hair simply
braided and embellished with knots of ribbon, strings of pearls, or
Nature's most beautiful adornment for the maiden--sweet-scented flowers.
[Illustration: ELIZABETHAN HEAD-DRESS.]
The auburn tresses of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, were always
_bien coiffee_, if we may judge from her various portraits. She scorned
the hoods, lace caps, and pointed coifs, worn by her contemporaries, and
adopted a miniature crown or jaunty hat of velvet, elaborately jewelled.
Her fair complexion and light hair were thrown into relief by ruffles of
lace, and this delicate fabric was stretched over fine wire frames,
which met at the back, and remotely suggested the fragile wings of the
butterfly, or the nimbus of a saint, neither of which ornaments was
particularly appropriate to the lady in question. The front hair was
turned over a cushion, or dressed in stiff sausage-like curls, pinned
close to the head, and was adorned with strings and stars of flashing
gems and a pendant resting on the forehead.
[Illustration: A BEAUTY OF THE COURT OF CHARLES II.]
That splendid historian, Stubbs, who has left us such minute particulars
of the fashions of his time, quaintly describes the coiffure of the
ladies of the Court. He states: "It must be curled, frizzled, crisped,
laid out in wreaths and borders from one ear to the other, and lest it
should fall down, must be underpropped with forkes and weirs, and
ornamented with gold or silver curiously wrought. Such gewgaws, which
being unskilful in woman's tearms, I cannot easily recount. Then upon
the toppes of their stately turrets, stand their other capital
ornaments: a French hood, hatte, cappe, kircher and suchlike, whereof
some be of velvet, some of this fashion and some of that. Cauls made of
netwire, that the cloth of gold, silver, or tinsel, with which their
hair was sometimes covered, might be seen through; and lattice caps with
three horns or corners, like the forked caps of popish priests." The
Harleian MSS., No. 1776, written in the middle of Elizabeth's reign,
refers to an ordinance for the reformation of gentlewomen's head-dress,
and says: "None shall wear an ermine or lattice bonnet unless she be a
gentlewoman born, having Arms." This latter phrase, we may conclude,
refers to armorial bearings, not to physical development.
The wearing of false hair and periwigs was left to the sterner sex for
some years after the restoration of the House of Stuart, and women were
satisfied with well-brushed ringlets escaping from a bandeau of pearls,
or beautified by a single flower. The hair was often arranged in small,
flat curls on the forehead, as in the sketch of a Beauty of the Court of
Charles II.; and this fashion had a softening effect on the face, and
was known as the "Sevigne style."
[Illustration: END OF 17TH CENTURY.]
Dutch fashions naturally prevailed in the Court of William and Mary, and
this queen is represented with a high muslin cap, adorned with a series
of upright frills, edged with lace, and long lappets falling on the
shoulders. Farquhar, in his comedy "Love and the Bottle," alludes to the
"high top-knots," and Swift, to the "pinners edged with colberteen," as
the lace streamers were called. About this period the hair was once
again rolled back from the face, and assumed enormous dimensions, so
much so, that in some cases it was found necessary to make doorways
broader and higher than they had hitherto been, to allow
fashionably-dressed ladies to pass through without displacing the
elaborate erections they carried. Stuffed with horsehair, clotted with
pomade and powder, and decked with every conceivable ornament, from a
miniature man-of-war in full sail, to a cooing dove with outspread
wings, presumably sitting on its nest, or a basket of flowers wreathed
with ribbons. Naturally, the aid of the barber was called in, as ladies
were incapable of constructing and manipulating such a mass of tangled
locks. We may imagine, on the score of expense and for other reasons,
the hair was not dressed so frequently as cleanliness demanded, for in a
book on costume a hairdresser is described as asking one of his
customers how long it was since her hair had been opened and repaired.
On her replying, "Nine weeks," he mildly suggested that that was as long
as a head could well go in summer, "and, therefore, it was proper to
deliver it now, as it began to be a little _hazarde_." Various anecdotes
of this nature make us feel that personal hygiene was a matter of
secondary importance to our ancestors.
Planche, in his work on British Costume, informs us that powder
maintained its ground till 1793, when it was discarded by Her Majesty
Queen Charlotte, Consort of George III., and the Princesses.
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE COIFFURE OF AN ELDERLY LADY IN THE 18TH
CENTURY.]
[Illustration: FASHIONABLE HEAD-DRESSES IN THE TIMES OF THE GEORGES.]
Varied, indeed, have been the fashions of the 19th century, the close of
which is fast approaching. Only a few of the styles adopted can be
briefly touched upon, and, naturally, those will be selected which form
the greatest contrast to each other. The belle of 1830 was distinguished
by upstanding bows of plain or plaited hair, arranged on the crown of
the head, and the front was generally in bands or short ringlets, held
in place by tortoise-shell side-combs. The simplicity of this coiffure
was compensated for by the enormous size of the hats and bonnets
generally worn with it. These had wide and curiously-shaped brims, over
which was stretched or gathered silk, satin, aerophane, or similar
materials. Garlands and bunches of flowers and feathers were used in
profusion, and bows and strings of gauze ribbon floated in the wind. In
this bewitching costume were our grandmothers wooed and won by suitors
who evidently, from the impassioned love letters still in existence,
believed them to be perfect types of loveliness.
Towards the middle of Queen Victoria's reign, the hair was dressed in a
simple knot, and the front arranged in ringlets, which fell gracefully
on the chest and shoulders. Even youthful married ladies, in the privacy
of their homes and for morning dress, were expected, by one of those
potent but unwritten laws of the fickle goddess Fashion, to wear muslin
or net caps, with lace borders, embellished with ribbons.
[Illustration: 1830.]
[Illustration: 1855.]
[Illustration: BIRD'S-NEST CHIGNON, 1872.]
[Illustration: PRESENT DAY, 1894.]
The labours of Hercules would be mere child's play compared to giving a
faithful record of the chameleon-like changes which have affected that
kaleidoscope, public taste, during the last forty years, and a very
limited study of this fascinating subject at once convinces us that,
whatever peculiarities may appear, they are certain to be revivals or
modifications of styles favoured by our more or less remote ancestors.
In 1872 loomed upon us that ghastly horror the chignon, which bore a
faint resemblance to the exaggerated coiffures of the 18th century. Upon
this monstrous edifice, with its seductive Alexandra curl, were tilted
bonnets so minute that they were almost invisible in the mountains of
hair that surrounded them. These were replaced by hats _a la Chinois_,
like shallow plates; while for winter wear, others of fur or feathers
were introduced, with an animal's head fixed firmly on the brow of the
wearer, and resembling nothing so much as the fox foot-warmer, with
which ladies now keep their pedal extremities at a proper temperature
when enjoying an airing. Besides these, there were pinched canoes turned
keel uppermost, and flexible mushrooms, which flapped and caught the
wind till it was necessary to attach a string to the edge, to keep them
snug and taut; such hats as Leech has immortalised in his sketches.
Turbans and facsimiles of the delicious but indigestible pork-pie,
Gainsborough, Rousby, and Langtry hats, all named after styles worn by
their respective namesakes; and hats made of straw, leghorn, crinoline,
lace, satin, and of silver and gold tissue, of every shape and size that
fancy could devise, or the heart of the most exacting woman of fashion
could desire. The hair beneath was dressed like the frizzy mop
illustrated, in plaited wedges flowing like a pendant hump half-way down
the back, or in a cascade of curls reaching from the crown of the head
to the waist. These were followed by gigantic rolls at the back of the
skull, Grecian knots, varying from the dimensions of a door handle to
those of a cottage loaf, and latterly by that hideous monstrosity, the
"bun." Another turn of the wheel of fashion has given us a simple mode
of dressing the hair, which is well adapted to the average English head,
and which is fully explained by the accompanying sketch. It may be taken
as a safe rule, when the forehead is low and face small, that the hair
may be drawn back with advantage, but a long face is generally improved
by arranging the hair in soft curls on the forehead, and by waving it
slightly at the sides, which adds to the apparent width of the
countenance. But whatever style is in fashion, it is sure to have its
admirers, for has not Pope left on record:
"Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us by a single hair."