Study On Hennin Headdress In The Late Gothic

In the gothic period, female headdress was various as well as complex，Hennin headdresswas the most striking one, which was widely prevalent in15th century. Hennin is used to definethe special towering headdress, the three representative ones are steeple-crowned style、heart-shaped and the butterfly-shaped headdress.This paper reviews the headwear evolution in the gothic period, it is evident that women’sheadwear changed relatively slowly before the end of14th century, while it began to develop andbecome luxury in the15th century and reached elaborate at the end of the15th century. Thisarticle focuses on the analysis of the shapes、materials and structure of the three Henninheaddress in the mid-to-late15th century, and further to probe into the social function of them.Hennin headdress maintains close relations to women’s images and their social statues.Women worn Hennin to build their images and show their social position and identities.