Video: Why hats with feathers were at the height of fashion in past centuries, and which birds suffered from glamor
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Today, a man decorating his clothes with feathers evokes in us peculiar associations, but in past eras it was the other way around, this detail of the dress spoke of the masculinity of the owner of the hat, and sometimes of his high military rank.
The idea of decorating a headdress with a bright and preferably high detail appeared in antiquity. Homer mentions the crests of battle helmets fluttering in the wind, but the Trojan War dates back to the 13th century. BC. The most famous helmet with a crest can be considered the Corinthian or Doric helmet, a "tail" of horsehair was attached to it. The fashion for such decoration was purely practical: in the heat of battle, accessories of different colors made it possible to distinguish their fellow soldiers from enemies and quickly orient themselves. And this concerned not only the soldiers themselves, but also the military leaders, who could quickly assess the disposition of forces. Historians believe that the soldiers from each polis painted the combs in one color, and the transverse arrangement of the decoration made it possible to recognize the commanders.
In the Middle Ages, the decoration of the headdress did not disappear. The knights attached plumes of feathers to their helmets, although more often this was done just for beauty. By the way, it is precisely as an element of military uniform that feather sultans survived the longest - until the 19th century. Shakos, cocked hats and bicorns were decorated with feathers and sultans, by which, like several thousand years ago, one could quickly recognize a fighter of a particular regiment.
It is believed that the "peaceful" fashion for hats with feathers was introduced by Matthäus Schwarz, the chief accountant of the Augsburg trading house of the Fuggers. They even call the exact date when this event happened - on May 10, 1521, a famous fashionista, wishing to amaze the imagination of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, put on a headdress with white and red ostrich feathers that corresponded to the heraldic colors of Austria.
I must say that the efforts paid off: the emperor brought the innovator of fashion closer to him and gave him the title of nobility, and feathers for several centuries became the most important attribute of smart and everyday clothes. The wearing of feathers was considered so important that in 1573 Plantin's Flemish-French dictionary was even forced to create a word to describe people who preferred not to wear feather hats, literally translated as "featherless people."
The fashion for bright feathers reflected a very important economic aspect - the expansion of trade relations in Europe. Most often, exotic birds were brought from African colonies and their keeping in houses became another sign of aristocracy and wealth. The feathers of parrots and ostriches became a real convertible currency, which, like precious stones, was exchanged for weight at the rate of gold. Of course, rarer and more original jewelry was a sign of special chic, and people with more modest demands made do with the feathers of cranes, swallows and other local birds.
As a result of the rampant fashion, over the next three hundred years, some species of birds (mainly herons and cranes) disappeared in Europe, and people still thought about the future. In 1906, Alexandra, Queen of Great Britain, ordered to get rid of all her hats with feathers in order to set a good example of a reasonable attitude to nature, but the fashion for chic jewelry continued for quite a long time, however, wearing feathers in the 20th century became the prerogative of women and a sign of special glamor. … So, in the 1950s, Marlene Dietrich appeared in the lobby of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in a feather fur coat with a one and a half meter train. The feathers of 300 swans went to this creation of the fashion designer Jean Louis, and today it is difficult to imagine that animal rights activists would leave such an outfit unattended.
As for the military uniform, nowadays its most important quality has come to be considered invisibility and convenience, therefore Pompons, bear hats, peacock feathers and other delights are a thing of the past.
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