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Editor: R. H. Wadleigh
HEAD-GEAR, ANTIQUE AND MODERN.
WADLEIGH'S Fashionable Millinery and Cap Rooms, 474 Washington Street, BOSTON, MASS.
CONSTANTLY ON HAND, UNTRIMMED CHIP AND STRAW HATS AND BONNETS, French, English, and American.
THE CORRECT STYLE IN Trimmed Dress Bonnets, Round Hats, Travelling and Riding Hats.
DAILY RECEIVING THE VERY LATEST NOVELTIES.
Misses' and Children's Hats, Trimmed and Untrimmed.
HEAD-GEAR, ANTIQUE AND MODERN.
Illustrated.
Compiled and Edited by
R. H. WADLEIGH.
Boston: Coleman & Maxwell, Stationers and Printers, 58 and 60 Federal Street. 1879.
Respectfully yours,
R. H. WADLEIGH. FASHIONABLE MILLINERY AND CAP ROOMS, 474 WASHINGTON STREET BOSTON.
MARCH 24th, 1879.
INTRODUCTION.
As civilization and mental improvement advance in any country, a laudable curiosity is awakened to inquire into, and become acquainted with, the appearances, manners, and opinions of other nations and times. To gratify this curiosity, and to assist in this effort to be informed respecting the individual manners and customs, the external appearance, and the general fashions of different peoples and periods, this work is issued, presenting to the eye a series of judiciously selected and well executed representations of the original and ancient head-dress, and quotations and facts gleaned from ancient history to verify their correctness.
Trusting this work will interest, if not benefit, its readers,
I remain, respectfully,
R. H. WADLEIGH.
MILLINERY ROOMS, 474 Washington St.
BOSTON, March 1, 1879.
Catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the absurdities, and the littlenesses of conscious greatness by the way.
Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight!
Onward, still onward, Seeking knowledge and light.
Perhaps the most ancient head-dress that we find mentioned in history is the tiara. Strabo informs us that it was in the form of a tower.
It is often seen carved upon ancient medals, and Servius calls it a Phrygian cap. The kings and heroes of Homer and Virgil wore this head-dress:--
This royal robe and this tiara wore Old Priam.
Woman is defined by an ancient writer to be an "animal that delights in finery"; and it is to be feared the annals of dress in every land, the most savage as well as the most civilized, will but prove the truth of the assertion.
A caul is a very ancient head-dress; it is mentioned in the Bible, and by many old writers; it was usually made of net-work, of gold or silk, and enclosed all the hair. Some were set with jewels, and were very heavy and of great value. In the time of Virgil cauls were much worn:--
Her head with ringlets of her hair is crowned, And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them and the wreath that crowned.
O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew.
It appears that females were the chief musicians, and these were probably ladies of rank, for they are robed in that delicate texture which was then called "Woven Air."
The figures on the opposite page give an illustration of Chinese women in full dress. Fig. 3 represents a married lady with her hair tied on top of the head. A quantity of false hair was used to make a tuft as large as possible, filled with gold or silver pins, the ends of which were highly ornamented with jewels. Artificial flowers were often used to ornament the head. But the favorite coiffure--the object of a Chinese lady's greatest admiration--was an artificial bird, formed of gold or silver, intended to represent Fong-Whang, a fabulous bird of which the ancients relate many marvellous tales. It was worn in such a manner that the wings stretched over the front of the head; the spreading tail made a kind of plume on the top, and the body was placed over the forehead, while the neck and beak hung down; and the former, being fastened to the body with an invisible hinge, vibrated with the least motion.
The recorded history of China begins 2697 years before Christ.
The above figures, Nos. 3 and 4, represent the head-dress and costumes of a later date.
The researches of scholars and critics which have been so generously and successfully lavished, for the last two centuries, upon the ruins of Egypt, are perfectly marvellous, and only increase our desire to be more acquainted with its customs, of which we can find but little in the way of head-dress to ornament these pages. Figure 7, on the opposite page, represents King Rameses First and his queen, who reigned through the most illustrious period of Egyptian history, in the nineteenth dynasty, about 1411 B.C.
In the early history of Rome, 550 years B.C., in the reign of Servius Tullius, there seems to have been nothing whatever of head-dress.
Thus we read in the "AEneid":--
Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind; Loose was her hair and wanton'd in the wind.
Ribbons or fillets were a very general head-dress.
Thus Virgil says:--
In perfect view their hair with fillets tied. Her beauteous breast she beat and rent her flowing hair.
Strabo says, that in Athens it consisted of a wreath of myrtle leaves and roses around the head, forming a corobulus.
The hair over the forehead of Apollo Belvidere is an example of a corobulus. And the hair was twined or spun around a spindle, in the shape of a cone, and one or more of these projected from the crown of the head, with a golden grasshopper for ornament, as seen in Fig. 10.
Four hundred and eighty years B.C., hats were not worn as a rule, and dress was in simple style. It was considered improper for women to be seen on the street, and their appearance there occurred only on exceptional occasions.
On journeys, women wore a light, broad-brimmed petasos, which Figs. 8 and 11 represent, as a protection from the sun. At a late period the head-dress of Athenian ladies, at home and for the street, consisted, in addition to the customary veil, chiefly of different contrivances for holding together their plentiful hair.
At an early period, Greek women wore longer or shorter veils, which covered the face up to the eyes, and, falling over the neck and back in heavy folds, covered the whole upper part of the body.
We often find instances of the exquisite taste of these head-dresses in statuary and gems of ancient origin; at the same time it must be confessed that most modern fashions, even the ugly ones, have their models, if not in Greek, at least in Roman antiquity.
A ribbon used to be worn around the head, tied in front with an elaborate knot. The net--after it the 'kerchief--was developed from the simple ribbon, in the same manner as straps on the feet gradually became boots.
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