Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/69

IV Henry IV., with tender solicitude for his own comfort and beauty, invented a cloth head-dress

which enwrapped his bald pate and bore a gold device on one side, and a fringe on the hem. A novel head-dress for a woman, calculated to show both itself and the hair at the best, shows plaits worn outside the lawn covering, as in the picture. This must have been most attractive; so too would be a lawn head-dress which set outwards and upon a frame at the back, whence it hung straight across to form a most becoming background. The origin of this was German, and its accomplishment was a little complicated, involving the arrangement of the ordinary band of linen round the face, while above was drapery of appliqué work in white or white of silver. The short veil which came above this again was kept in place

by a jewelled circlet, the cloth around the throat and shoulders being cut in one with the inner band of the wimple.

Amongst the most attractive descriptions that I have found of dress in this period is one of a Frenchwoman whose hair was entwined with black ribbon, and whose dress was of white embroidered in silver, with small sleeves of red and white check bordered with gold.