Venetian Renaissance Help

[auntiegiggles]

ok.  I am finally starting work on my gown.  But now I have another question.  I would like to do the veil look for head wear.  The veil would clip to the back of my head and not on top.   I've read Venetian women were allowed flexibility in their head coverings and most portraits women have very little or none at all.  Their is still done typically with braids and rolled on the head.   But were veils reserved for widows and maids?  I can't find any evidence to support the latter claim but wanted your input.

Thanks!

[isabelladangelo]

No!   Veils were worn by every female - while out in town.  Hence why you don't see many in portraits.   Courtesans typically wore some sort of yellow veil (it varied by city state and decade so it's not a hard & fast rule).   Think of veils being worn when our mothers and grandmothers would have worn a hat.   You *could* wear one inside but, most of the time, a hat was for one was going out.  The same with veils.   

[auntiegiggles]

Awesome!  Thank you! 

Any idea on construction of a veil (or a great site that talks about them?)   To me they look like a rectangle shape of sheer fabric with a width that goes from finger tip to finger tip and a length from crown to waist.  But someone else said it looked like they might be a triangle shape.   Any ideas?

[isabelladangelo]

Mine are almost all rectangular.  I have one oval one but I tend to use that for earlier periods like the 14th Century.

If you look at "Mores Italiae" from 1575 on the Realm of Venus site, you'll see that a lot of veils really look like just sheets of sheer fabric.   

[auntiegiggles]

That is what I thought!  Thank you for being such an amazing source of information!