Humans have dressed their hair with headgear and various ornaments since time immemorial. We have already covered hats previously in this column, and could add here that badges, brooches, tassels, flowers, ribbons and bows, feathers and even whole stuffed birds have been added to caps, hats and bonnets, at different points in history. Ladies’ hat pins, used to secure the fabric of the headwear onto the hair, are a whole topic in their own right, with Victorian and Edwardian hat pins fashioned from diverse materials including gold and silver, semi-precious stones, ivory, jet, even sharks’ teeth, becoming major collectors’ items today.

Sometimes the vogue has been not to cover the head with enveloping headgear, but, depending upon the prevailing hairstyles, to secure the hair with decorative bands, filets and combs, or to ornament the tresses in other ways. By the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when elite modes and court dress reached new heights of luxury and excess, jewels and pearls were scattered in the extravagant curled wigs then worn, adding to the striking effect of artifice and magnificence. During the Stuart era, lustrous pearls remained the admired ornaments, often wound about the knot of hair behind the head, complimenting cascading ringlets. Later, mid-Georgian ladies favoured delicate gauzy caps edged with pearls, and pompom aigrettes of diamonds and fine feathers. In the late 1700s a simpler neo-classical look evolved, long tresses worn in loose natural curls with an antique filet or bandeau around the head.

Evening coiffures tended to encourage some of the most ornate hair ornaments and by the early-1800s when picturesque ‘Romantic’ fashions set the tone, ladies hairstyles might incorporate combs of tortoiseshell, coral, various metals and other materials, sprays of artificial flowers and greenery and long decorative ‘glauvina’ pins, accentuating the eye-catching ‘Apollo knot’ and other fantastic chignons, twists and knots of hair. Later, in the Victorian era, for balls, formal dinners and other evening engagements ladies again wore strings of pearls or glittering stones in their ornate high-piled and curled hairstyles, fine pearls being favoured for young unmarried females, heavier coloured stones for older and married ladies. In the 20th century dress grew more relaxed although for evening and bridal wear, when the hair was worn high, flowers and other ornaments were de rigueur. For daywear, ‘Alice’ bands, ribbons and bows, as well as decorative plastic, base or precious metal or gemstone slides and hairclips have all been used for tying or pinning back the hair, although with short hair often favoured for women in modern times, these accessories come and go according to fashion.