15th century Heart shaped Hennin

In order to match my in progress houpelande, I needed some sort of period headwear. Now the 15th century is notable for many things, amoung them the sheer volume of truly EPIC headgear. From things that look like a lampshade inverted over the head, to the large number of different varieties of hennin, to some truly incredible pinned and shaped veils, the 15th century has the fabulous and faintly ridiculous to the modern eye headgear competition won. In fact, sifting through it to find something that I could wear and not feel totally ridiculous was difficult. The sheer size of many of the pieces is daunting, even allowing for artistic licence. My personal favorites are images from the beautiful fresco work of the nine worthies and the nine worthy women by Giacamo Jaquerio.

after a lot of looking at pictures, and sending pictures to friends and laughing over them. I decided that I had two options: I could go with matronly and demure, with a folded and pinned veil, something like this one from Van der Weyden. It would require some sort of basic supports, but I likely had all the moving parts for from my 14th century wimple/veil/false braids combo. This would be low key, which, as I'm going to be a companion for one of the consorts at the east kingdom crown tournament when I wear this ensemble for the first time, would be suitable. It's also appropriate for my age and also my sort of station in life. By medieval standards, I am a matron.


OR I could do something fun and ridiculous. I was drawn to this more moderate heart shaped hennin and folded veil, also from the fresco of the 9 worthies. I say more moderate as compared to the really obnoxious examples. like another from the same fresco. Now THAT is some hat!

While  have nothing against personifying myself as demure and retiring with my headwear (and in fact do go out properly wimpled and veiled whenever I do 14th century. which is rare but does happen) the chance to do something so (the adjective I keep coming back to is "ridiculous") completely over the top is rare. and it just looked like a good deal of fun, if I could get past people staring at me.

In the end I made my decision spontaneously on a day when I felt terrible, but still had to supervise the horde. I just needed something funny and cheerful to work on by hand while I sat propped upright at the table. And thus the heart shaped hennin was born.

Construction wise, I haven't heard of any surviving headdresses, so all we have are pictures and written accounts to go on. I've seen the heart shaped hennin reproduced a number of ways. A lot of them I find unlikely and some of them I think look wrong (personal opinion. not based on irrefutably concrete evidence or exhaustive research.) So I made it up as I went along, picking the method that seemed most likely to me, and extrapolated most from earlier headdresses: under the logical assumption that it's more likely that people would adapt a known form than create something brand new. (not that it never happens. but typically fashion proceeds one step at a time not in grand leaps.)
I started with a sort of elongated semi pointy caul shape to cover my ear and the side of my head. I first patterned it out of cardboard, and when the shape seemed reasonable, cut and sewed it out of heavy duty needlepoint foundation. Yes, the proper thing to do would be to use buckram. But I had this, and wanted to see if it would do in a pinch.

I made two of the caul pieces, and then set them aside to make essentailly a closely fitted coif of the same foundation material. first shaping it with a single center seam, and then tightening it in over the ears with a pair of darts.  With that solid, I attached the side pieces to it with pins. To be sure that the shape was right, I used a tea towel as a stunt double for the eventual padded roll adornment. So far so good. (I then proceeded to send pictures to all my friends that needed something to laugh about.)


With the shape set, it was time to start building the actual hat. First it all had to be padded with layers of batting to both finish out the shape, and to disguise sharp seam edges. I used the batting that I keep on the roll here, which is Quilters Dream angel. It was nice for this because it's dense and fairly firm rather than just super fluffy. It's also fairly easy to stretch to shape and tack down.

 I used multiple layers places where it need needed a softer, rounder shape: over the ears of the caul parts, and along the center ridge seam of the coif part.

 Then a single layer over everything. I paid particular attention to basting and butting the seams in the joins so that there wasn't any overlap. this kept the crease between wings and head shape and neat. I was also sure to pull the outside over the tip of the wings and baste it on the inside so that any lumps would be hidden by the padded roll.

 The last step on the base was to wire the edges. this ensures that the cap or hat or whatever millinery you are making maintains the shape of it's edges. In this case it's particularly important because it keeps the edges of the cauls tight to your face. Typically one would use Millinery or florist's wire. This is copper ground wire, because it's easy to shape, sturdy, and (this is a repetitive refrain of mine) I already had it lying about. I tacked the wire in place to be sure the bends were right, then used blanket stitch to attach it all the way around the edge. Usually I've whip stitched, but for this application i liked the way blanket stitch held the wire better: it made a sort of casing.

With the base done, I started covering everything in fabric by draping a long strip of bias cut black cloth (the same from my gown) over the coif portion of the hennin. Bias allowed me to pull it tight to shape along the top, only taking in a small dart at the center back. I basted it to the batting where it will go under the sides, and carefully basted it into the joins between the wings and coif. 

then the inside of the wings. I was originally going to cut the pattern piece out and then sew it like a slip cover, but because of the added padding, and because the draping on the center part went so well, I decided to just drape bias cut pieces of fabric over the wings as well. This portion got photographed and sent to all my friends as well, since it looked like I had a giant bat perched on my head..... I was everyone's comedic relief while I was working on this thing (including my own!)

 it looked a good deal less like an errant bat once I'd trimmed the fabric, gathered it, and whip stitched it down to the padding.

It was also at this point that I decided the tall points of the cauls were a bit less sturdy than they needed to be to hold up to decorating and padded rolls and whatnot. They tended to want to collapse in on themselves when I was stitching them, and I was afraid that they might get accidentally crushed and be hard to re form once the hat was lined. So I packed a little poly fill into the tops just to firm them up a little. That solved the problem and they held up beautifully to all the rest of the decorating.

with the major construction of the form done, it was time to finish off the inside of the cap with a lining. I made the lining like a coif, with a single curved back seam, then basted it into the inside. Because the foundation of the hennin has numerous shaping darts, I had to slightly gather the lining into it. For this reason I used a very thin cotton muslin, that wouldn't be awkardly bulky. I carefully turned and whip stitched the lining down to the brow portion of the cap, then bound off the rest of it with some matching linen bias tape I had lying around from another project. 

 Next project was covering the cauls. I had a plan for a scrap of burgundy or dark fuchsia (somewhere in the middle. very pretty) velvet I had. Unfortunately it had been in the bottom of a bin and was quite crushed. A good steaming and brushing with a stiff bristled brush sorted everything out though.

 I cut the cauls using the pattern from the foundation, plus a little extra to allow for padding. I decorated them with beads and gold ribbon and braid in a lattice pattern. Because by this point I had challenged myself to make the whole hat with nothing but what I had on hand, I ended up making different design choices than I usually would, but I think the final effect is very pleasing.

 With the cauls made, I mounted them on the side pieces. The grand plan is to make it so that I can switch the side pieces without completely deconstructing the whole hat. So the decoration was mounted to the velvet, then the velvet pinned in place and whip stitched down to the form. I covered the stitching with some gold braid, then trimmed the edge with trim I made by braiding gold cord with faux pearl strand.

 With the hat itself finished, I turned to the padded roll. I made the base by wrapping strips of batting around a bent wire (ground wire again, because it's easier to shape than coathanger wire). Instead of wrapping it around a straight wire and then bending it into the characteristic V shape, I butted the batting at the front and back, and then cut it at an appropriate angle and whip stitched the ends together. This eliminated some of the possibly bulk and wrinkling.

 After checking the roll for size, I proceeded to cover it with some grey acetate faux silk from my stash. First whip stitching the fabric to the bottom of the roll, then wrapping it, turning the edge under, pinning it, and using small stitches to sew it down. With both sides sewn down, I angled the ends and carefully sewed them. angling the ends was important because it avoided a big bunch of ugly wrinkles right in the V of the roll. With the roll done, the final step was to bend it to shape and carefully baste it to the side pieces of the hat.

 and done! I'm still deciding on how to pin the veil and how much decoration to put on the roll. The small dangly things (called bezants) are period but I'm not sure if I love them. it seems to depend on how I want to pin my veil. Since this is just a stunt veil made of a piece of bridal tulle (the organza for the veil proper is on order.) I've decided to wait till I have the final veil done to decide how I'm going to pin it and if I want the bezants or not. I like them with the veil pinned this way.

But I dislike them with it pinned this way, with the "butterfly" in the center. Both are period methods of veil arrangement taken from images. but I'm not sure which I'l like more.

The other thing to take notice of is how much further down my forehead the front of my headdress is than the period images. I took it as far up to my hairline as I could without having hair sticking out (and I have a moderately high forehead) but it's still lower than period images. During this time period a high forehead was considered a sign of beauty and intelligence, so women would pluck their foreheads much like we now pluck our eyebrows. Since I am not going to pluck my forehead, I am left with a slightly off representation of the period look.

Pictures of the full ensemble will be coming once I finish up my Houpelande and get the proper veil finished.