Turbans...oh my
In creating a period correct "look" for any time period, it will almost always be our choice of accessories and, in particular, head coverings that will complete our outfit. Women, in the modern age, are ill used to have their hair covered except in bad weather but this is a relatively recent development in women's dress. Up until about a century ago women generally wore some sort of head covering both in and outside of their homes. So part of creating a visually correct look for any time period will be head coverings.
Turbans were fairly popular from 1790 to modern times and in the Regency period they appeared especially popular as a result of the fascination with all things "eastern". The fashion plates show a number of different looks. We are fortunate enough to have a number of extant examples of turbans, although these usually fall into the category of capotes with ropes of fabric and or strings of beads attached to the capote forming a single unit. Any review of paintings of the day show that turban was a frequent fashion choice and worn by a variety of ages, in many settings with a lot of variation.
I wanted to create a turban to wear with my new ball gown, but there was not a lot of fabric left over from the dress. The turban also needed to be easily transported long distances and be quick and easy to put on. Fabric is easily transported but I just could not see me trying to find enough friends to help me assemble my turban as this lady had done:
So my options quickly came down to some variation of the capote, with or without the addition of ropes of fabric sewn onto the capote to resemble a turban. I first created the capote, which is simply a band of the yellow silk/ cotton fabric with a circlelet of the brown silk over the yellow silk (left over from the ball gown) to create the caul section of the capote. Then after pouring through my feather collection I came up with the ones that I wanted to attach. At this point I was still not certain whether to go with strictly the capote or to continue to turn it into a roped turban
However, after some consideration I decided to use it as the base for a turban. Unfortunately I didn't have any more of the yellow silk/ cotton blend left and so to create my ropes I used another, much paler yellow silk as one of the ropes and the original ball gown brown silk as the second rope. The ropes were about 4 feet in length. These are tied together and then twisted around one another. The twisted ropes were then wound onto the capote (several times). Once they were in the configuration that I wanted I then proceeded to sew them together with attachments to the capote to keep them in place. The final thing was to add the feathers and the turban jewel and after trying several variations of placement this is the final look of the turban:
Turbans were fairly popular from 1790 to modern times and in the Regency period they appeared especially popular as a result of the fascination with all things "eastern". The fashion plates show a number of different looks. We are fortunate enough to have a number of extant examples of turbans, although these usually fall into the category of capotes with ropes of fabric and or strings of beads attached to the capote forming a single unit. Any review of paintings of the day show that turban was a frequent fashion choice and worn by a variety of ages, in many settings with a lot of variation.
I wanted to create a turban to wear with my new ball gown, but there was not a lot of fabric left over from the dress. The turban also needed to be easily transported long distances and be quick and easy to put on. Fabric is easily transported but I just could not see me trying to find enough friends to help me assemble my turban as this lady had done:
So my options quickly came down to some variation of the capote, with or without the addition of ropes of fabric sewn onto the capote to resemble a turban. I first created the capote, which is simply a band of the yellow silk/ cotton fabric with a circlelet of the brown silk over the yellow silk (left over from the ball gown) to create the caul section of the capote. Then after pouring through my feather collection I came up with the ones that I wanted to attach. At this point I was still not certain whether to go with strictly the capote or to continue to turn it into a roped turban
However, after some consideration I decided to use it as the base for a turban. Unfortunately I didn't have any more of the yellow silk/ cotton blend left and so to create my ropes I used another, much paler yellow silk as one of the ropes and the original ball gown brown silk as the second rope. The ropes were about 4 feet in length. These are tied together and then twisted around one another. The twisted ropes were then wound onto the capote (several times). Once they were in the configuration that I wanted I then proceeded to sew them together with attachments to the capote to keep them in place. The final thing was to add the feathers and the turban jewel and after trying several variations of placement this is the final look of the turban: