Purplefiles is down

And I am really sad! Katerina's site is one of my favorite places to go for inspiration and inspiration. Bella, Anea, and she are my top 3 places to start any crazy Italian research quest. I'm hoping she'll get back up.

I swung by this morning to help put together the references on my turban/headwrap. While they are far more common in Florence than elsewhere, I did find one beautiful portrait from Venice with one in it. By an unknown artist of the Venetian school and currently held at the Louvre, Portrait of a Young Woman has the sitter in a gorgeous blue headwrap. Bella has it in her 1520's section.

The references I have seen for Florentine headwraps seem to be for plain or embroidered linen. Again, I'm jumping off of Kat's research. You can see bits of it on the archived page, but most of the pictures are down. Several of the reference photos are from Carole Frick'sDressing Renaissance Florence. I have a copy, but it is currently wrapped and under the tree for me, so I'll have to add pictures after the holiday (I did sneak a peek before I wrapped it though.)

The Venetian portrait is most definitely not linen. As I had a full plate of embroidery already and love the luminosity of silk I went ahead and made mine from a long scrap of coppery brown silk I had in stash. I really love tassels and fringe, so added some, reversing the gold fringe on white from Guiliano Bugiardini's "Portrait of a Young Woman" for white fringe on gold(ish.) The picture is in the National Gallery of Art. The photo is from Hans Ollerman's Flikr photostream. Great closeup of the fringe and embroidery.

An embroidered headwrap is on my spring agenda. Its impossible to resist and would be useful for my Rus as an ubrus, to wear with my Persian coats, or in case I suddenly decided to do a 19th century odalisque My peacock feather fan would work wonderfully for that too. Not likely, but rather amusing.

Still have to work on tying the turban/headwrap correctle, but I think its very fun and love fun hair and hat options so I'm pleased with the overall effect of this quick project.