| Throughout the history of clothing, the headdress | | | | with a wired frame covered in fabric and topped |
| has been part and parcel of proper attire. It was | | | | with a veil. Men now wore doublets and hose |
| an essential accessory on one's person ever since | | | | characteristic of late medieval men's clothes, |
| people began to develop a sense of clothing in | | | | displaying headdress extravagance with |
| medieval times going toward a more decorative | | | | tall-crowned hats with short brim or without brim. |
| trend in the duration of the Renaissance and even | | | | The Golden Era of the Headdress |
| the next century after. | | | | When the Renaissance era dawned on Western |
| Perhaps wearing some sort of head covering | | | | civilization, headgear burgeoned into its elaborate |
| emerged when mankind began declaring war on | | | | best. As the different regions of the Old World |
| one another, primarily as a form of protection for | | | | began to develop their own styles of Renaissance |
| the head. Eventually, when Christianity was | | | | clothing, a variety of headdresses thrived with |
| introduced and spread throughout early medieval | | | | their matching dresses. Unique to England was the |
| civilization, people, notably women, began to | | | | gable hood, a wired headdress shaped like the |
| include some kind of head covering in their | | | | gable of a house. It had embroidered lappets |
| medieval clothingconcerns. | | | | framing the face and a loose veil behind. The |
| Middle Ages Headgear | | | | French hood concurrently became popular in |
| In the late High Middle Ages, the Western world | | | | France, arched in shape and placed further back |
| began to dress in what can definitively be | | | | of the head to show center-parted hair that were |
| recognizable fashion. While it was acceptable for | | | | pinned and twisted beneath the veil. |
| Italian women to have uncovered hair, women | | | | Men, on the other hand, wore large |
| elsewhere in Europe wore a succession of | | | | pancake-shaped hats to complete their Tudor |
| headdresses, from the wimple to the barbet and | | | | clothesas inspired by Henry VIII. The German |
| fillet, a band passed under the chin and a | | | | barrett, with a turned-up brim, was particularly |
| headband to secure a linen cap or coif and a veil. | | | | fashionable throughout the period. The |
| As well, thick hairnets known as crespines | | | | trendsetting Henry VIII himself and his courtiers |
| confined the hair to the sides of the head. At this | | | | wore a similarly flat hat with a "halo" brim. |
| time, men were walking around in Tristan clothing | | | | By the time Elizabeth I became a prominent |
| with heads uncovered. | | | | fashion influence, headdresses were reduced to |
| When the 15th century came in, it ushered in | | | | decorative accessories to complete Renaissance |
| extremes and extravagances in the form of | | | | costumes. Cauls and coifs still endured in women's |
| voluminous medieval dresses called houppelandes | | | | fashion strictly to keep elaborate hairstyles in |
| and saw increasing importance in headdresses | | | | place, while men's hats derived from the flat hat |
| that became more and more elaborate, jeweled | | | | its gathered crown but eventually became taller. A |
| and feathered. The crespine became a bejeweled | | | | bit later, the conical capotain became fashionable. |
| mesh caul, which gathered the hair neatly to the | | | | Nevertheless, all hats were decorated with a |
| back of the head. The most extravagant | | | | jewel or a feather. |
| headdress was the hennin, a cone-shaped cap | | | | |