Medieval Paper Dolls: Hats and Headgear
Last week, we sent Alun and Joyeuse to Scandinavia. Today, we’re staying in our “costuming trailer” and instead demonstrating medieval (and passes-as-medieval) hats and hairs for your Sims to wear.
The medieval period, depending on your source, lasted from 476, with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, to 1500; that’s a very long time. So I whittled it down to…sixteen hats! Not bad for a thousand years of people putting new and interesting things on their heads and starting ephemeral fashion trends.
…a coif. Coifs were worn in order to cover the hair, avoid dirtying hats and bedsheets with hair oil, and perhaps to provide a level of padding in case the hat one was wearing was uncomfortable.
…an early medieval or “practical” chaperon. The chaperon was a sort of balaclava/poncho; it had one hole for one’s face, and one hole for one’s neck and shoulders. It was a cross-class headgear (because nobody wants frostbite), but it was not meant for looks. It was also multi-season; if you got too warm, you could push the head portion off, or pile the whole thing on top of your head like a turban.
…a bycocket. Bycockets were popular for over four hundred years, and were also known as “beak” hats. You may recognize them from depictions of Robin Hood. It was a unisex hat, and it was also fashionable to cover it in pins and feathers and all kinds of fun decorations.
…a late medieval, fashionable chaperon. By the later middle ages, it had evolved to the point where the fashionable wrapped the fabric around a padded roll, put their heads through the face hole, and let the remainder swing like a scarf–if they hadn’t sewn shut the neck hole entirely to make it drape properly. Not very warm, but it certainly looked striking.
…a brimless cap. Brimless caps were very popular in the early Renaissance years, especially in Florence. This style was frequently worn by younger men, and a scarlet cap was considered a signifier of youthful style and panache.
another variation on the brimless cap. This is a squarer version, which I simply liked too much in this painting to not try to Simprovise.
…a sugar-loaf cap. If you’ve watched Blackadder, this is the style of hat Edmund/Rowan Atkinson is wearing in the first episode. It’s one of the numerous brimless, odd-shaped hats of the Renaissance. This one simply is taller than the rest. (The name comes from the resemblance to the old-fashioned sugar loaf, which was how sugar was stored before the modern era.)
…a Tudor bonnet. While it’s not precisely the type Henry VII would have worn, flat caps became increasingly popular in the later part of the medieval period, especially in Northern England.
…a coif. Women’s coifs had the extra job of covering the hair to meet the era’s modesty standards. Additionally, coifs could be worn under wimples to create a smoother line and provide a base for the fillet (forehead band) and guimpe (chin band). Think of it like putting an irregularly-shaped present in a box before wrapping it; it looks nicer that way.
…a barbette and fillet. This is the beginning of the medieval transition to wide and high hairstyles; although the hair was at the back at the beginning–and I’m astonished to say that this Ambitions hair is actually somewhat artistically accurate–it soon migrated to the sides in the classic crispinette-and-caul hairstyle. The barbette is the pillbox-shaped bit at the top; the fillet is the cloth wrapped around Joyeuse’s head and neck. (TS2 had some marvelous crispinette meshes, which I dream of converting.)
…an escoffion. While this is also called a heart-shaped hennin, it’s actually the hennin’s distant cousin; it took the new emphasis on wide and tall hairstyles (the barbettes, crispinettes and cauls, as well as very early cornette buns) to its logical extreme.
…a divided hennin, which is the middle ground between the sheer vertical emphasis of the steeple hennin and the width and drapery of the escoffion. There were some really nice clam-shaped ones made for TS2, which I covet.
…the traditional steeple hennin, which we all know and love. This one comes with a decorative turban. This is simply because I wanted to imitate a certain portrait of Mary of Burgundy. The drape at the top is called a contoise.
…a truncated or “beehive” hennin. This was more popular in the Low Countries, and certainly was more attainable for the middle-class types than the impractical and expensive steeple hennins. It’s called truncated due to how it’s cut off at the top instead of coming to a point.
…a gable hood. Gable hoods were popular in the last twenty years or so of the medieval period, especially in England. It was something of a reaction to the increasingly impractical hennins.
…a French hood. While the one Joyeuse is wearing is a slightly more modern (c. 1540) version of the French hood, this headgear made its debut in 1500 if not earlier.
The coifs Alun and Joyeuse are wearing are by me! Be on the lookout for the download post.
Alun’s “sensible” chaperon is actually two accessories; the hood is by Venus Princess and can be found here, and the cape is by HappyLifeSims/lonelyboy and can be found here (the Victorian Male Cape).
Alun’s bycocket is by The Merrye Makers and can be found here.
Alun’s fancy chaperon is by SilFantasy and can be found here.
Alun’s red Florentine cap is an accessory by Modish Kitten and can be found here, thanks to @sweetdevil-sims.
Alun’s squared Florentine cap is by Severinka and can be found here.
Alun’s sugar-loaf hat is by from the SimsZoo, and can be found here; you can also use the two similar hat hairs that came from Supernatural for a little variety.
Alun’s Tudor bonnet is a TSM conversion by Ptylo and can be found here (Five TSM Hat Conversions).
Joyeuse’s barbette and fillet are from Ambitions; I dehairified the headgear and will be putting it up for download at some point in time.
Joyeuse’s escoffion is by Ladesire and can be found here.
Joyeuse’s divided hennin is also by Ladesire, and can be found here.
Joyeuse’s conical hennin is by Ladesire (the last one, I promise!) and can be found here, and the turban on top of it is by Ersch and can be found here.
Joyeuse’s truncated hennin is by Venus Princess and is actually a Jacoban priest hat from TSM. It can be found here.
Joyeuse’s gable hood, alas, is still in beta; I need to work up the courage to assign it proper bones.
Joyeuse’s French Hood is by me and can be found here.
Facial expression poses by @pixeljackpot.
Conversation poses by @danjaley.
The costume designer is played by @ice-creamforbreakfast‘s Bhavan Singh.
Joyeuse is wearing the Cloud Nine Afro (small) by Modish Kitten, except when she’s not, and a very cute tunic sweater ensemble by Around the Sims.
Alun is wearing a Generations hair, except when he’s not, and this shirt (no. 1) by Shokoninio.
