Peasant hats?

[Melissa the Loud]

What sort of headgear should a peasant woman wear? Preferably something that keeps off the sun. Straw seems like an obvious choice, but is there a way to make a straw hat look more renaissance than modern?

[isabelladangelo]

http://www.larsdatter.com/strawhats.htm

Everything you ever wanted to know about straw hats in the middle ages and renaissance. 

If you look for 18th C straw hats on etsy, they are very similar to 16th C hats and tend to be in the $20~$30 range.  You just need to add your own ties normally.  I've found them at 18th C fairs and markets for as low as $5 before but that's rare.   Any flat top straw hat will do, really. 

[gem]

If you look at the link Isabella provided, you'll see there was a surprising variety of straw hats in period!

Here's forum member InsidiousRaven in hers (she's on cast at KCRF):



...And here's mine. It's by far my most-worn hat:



I got one of those rare lucky deals--$9 at our local Highland games.

This year I bought a very inexpensive "decorative" straw hat in the floral department of Michaels, to use as the base of this decidedly un-peasanty hat , but I was surprised how well it would have worked on its own as an actual hat for Fair. The only problem was the very shallow crown--it would have needed ties to hold it on a human head. Otherwise, a great deal for $5 or less.

Like Raven is wearing, the straw hat was typically worn over another cap/caul/coif (you can't see mine in that photo). If you're portraying a historically accurate working-class character, you'll want to include that in your kit, too.