A Fascination With Fascinators
Once upon a time, every bride knew more or less what she would wear on her head at her wedding. Young first-time brides wore veils, older or previously married women wore hats. If you got married in a judge’s chambers or at City Hall, you wore a small hat, no matter what your age or previous marital status. Period. The only questions lay in the length of the veil or trim on the hat.
The good news is that all that went out the window nearly fifty years ago. The even better news is that there are huge numbers of options now, from cathedral length veils for third-time brides to glorious hats for formal first-time brides to bare heads to wreaths to…well, nearly anything you can imagine putting on your head.
One popular option right now is the fascinator. Once upon a time that word meant a wooly knitted or crocheted scarf that covered the head, but that was when Queen Victoria was still around. Nowadays a fascinator is a decorative bit of whimsey worn in the hair. It can be elegant like this:
Dramatic, like this:
Or even gloriously outrageous like this:
Sometimes a bride will choose a fascinator instead of a veil or hat. Sometimes she will choose to have a veil for the ceremony and then change to a fascinator for the reception. If worn for the ceremony, it might be combined with a small veil for a charming effect like this:
Of course, fascinators aren’t just for brides. They can also be worn to great effect by bridesmaids:
Or by flower girls:
Hey, it’s good enough for the Queen of England:
LOVE the butterflies!!!!
I am strongly pro-fascinator. I have been enjoying seeing them around as general Style, and I do like the wedding trend!
Heh. And here I DID expect a review of fascinators! (The original kind, that is.) Why aren’t these just … hair ornaments? Which is exactly what they are. Some of the most elaborate ones may merit the term “headdress”, another perfectly appropriate term.
I suspect the truth is that they sell better with a snappy new label – always acceptable in the realm of fashion, and with centuries of precedence, to boot.
@La BellaDonna: I suspect you are absolutely correct! Me? I still call them hair ornaments most of the time, because I grew up knowing about fascinators. Still, whatever one chooses to call these, they can be utterly charming.
I have known them as fascinators for as long as I have known they were a notable thing. I think that must mean about 20 years or so? Anyway, I learned the term in Great Britain, in relation to the fancy creations people wear to weddings and such.
Maybe there is term bleed-over within the wedding industrial complexes of the USA and the UK?
Fascinators! Okay, that name is truly fascinating. I can’t help but think that monicker was put in play to make a hair band or hat seem more sexy and decadent. Marketing at its very bridal best.
Love!
Except for the ridiculously large one that one bride is wearing (the one with the green-and-brown, er, junior maids). It takes a very secure and VERY stately woman to pull off a ‘do like that for more than a few pictures.