Strawberry Hill and my updated Gable Hoods

Strawberry Hill Miniature

Before moving to Oklahoma I had fallen in love with this miniature believed to be Anne Boleyn in the Strawberry Hill Galleries. As I studied the miniature and compared the look to my previous Gable Hood I decided this was clearly an earlier and more conservative version of the hood. Instead of looking to Holbein and Jane Seymour for more understanding on the construction I looked backward to the styles worn by Katherine of Aragon. Even if this miniature is not Anne, the elongated shape of the hood and wider curtain style veil off the back suggest she was attending court and was sporting a style Katherine of Aragon can been seen wearing in many portraits from the mid to late 1520's.

Katherine of Aragon by Wenceslaus Hollar

My reading and research lead me to a book called The Queen's Servants. It is a sequel to the Tudor Tailor and focuses on fashions earlier during Katherine of Aragon's reign as queen. The updated hood research for hats known in the 16th century as English Bonnets, has a coif, paste, frontlets, and veil. Where they recommended sewing the gable hoods of the 1530's into a solid at in the Tudor Tailor, these English Bonnets are held together with dressing pins. A few practical advantages of the pin construction, you can disassemble the had for easy transport and cleaning, or switch out the upper pieces to match your outfit.

These photos are of me wearing the hood with my natural hair. By modern standards I have long hair, but not with much body. I believe the hood will sit better if I add a supplemental false braid to help create a better foundation and raise the hat 1 inch off my collar bone without needing to be trimmed. I am working on encasing these braids in the yellow striped material seen in the painting as a possible reincarnation of the braid cases and nets seen in earlier centuries.

Photo by Melissa Jones 2016.

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