2010.38.4

This boudoir cap of aqua colored china silk is completely covered with machine made natural colored point d'esprit, with a zig-zag flounce around the bottom edge. The cap is decorated with five (5) small, aqua colored ribbon roses, spaced across the front of the cap and held in black on a black thread band. A knotted bow trim emblellishes either side of the cap, toward the back.

According to Fiona Clark "The Costume Accessories Series," A Batsford Book, UK, 1982, (page 76) "...Around 1908 the cap made a surprise final appearance under the name 'boudoir' cap. This may originate from the oriental-style turbans introduced for evening wear at this date by Paul Poiret. The oriental flavoour of the boudoir cap was conveyed through the use of gold lace, tissue ribbon, brightly printed silk and even fur. Towards the 1920s it developed a closer fit to the skull and the forms was extinct by 1930. As their name suggests, boudoir caps were worn for lounging with kimono style negliges and later with pyjamas, rather than with ordinary indoor dress or even with night wear. They were redolent of the world of ottomans, screens and tasselled cusshions, christened by Osbert Lancaster as 'Style Ballets Russes'."

Used: Edith May Blurton