Brittany's headdresses - France

Nice card from France depicting the coiffes de Bretagne, Brittany's headdresses. The card was sent by Damien.

 

Brittany is a historical region in the north-west of France, with a population of just over 4 million people. This small region is famous for its variety of traditional costume, officially there are 66 of them. Essential part of the women's costume is a headgear called coiffe. There are more varieties of coiffe than of costume, because for a young woman of marriageable age, for a married lady or for a widow coiffe must be different. They vary in size and complexity, from small pieces of lace worn over a bun, to elaborate, towering creations with flowing ribbons, but there is something common between them all: they are of white colour and mostly are made of lace (sometimes embroidered calico is used instead).

Editions D'Art

Each village and region has singularities in the coiffe, which tell the others about where the woman is from. And the names of the headdresses come from the names of those regions. 

The use of such headdress disappeared quite recently, and even in the 50s, their use was still common. Nowadays no one wears coiffe in everyday life anymore (except for a few older women in some villages), but during festivals the Breton women still, like a hundred years ago, cover their heads with lace, ribbons, cones and caps.- in: https://local-moda.blogspot.com