Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Mastering the French veil

I have always found head pieces with veiling very feminine, mysterious and oh-so-romantic. No wonder that for quite some I wanted to try and create one myself. Eventually I got my hands on a piece of birdcage (or French or Russian) veil and a piece of silk satin of ripe aubergine colour and decided to try.
Most of the veils these days are made for weddings which is another area I am going to explore (white and ivory veils have already been ordered). But this first time I wanted to make an evening version of a head piece which can be worn to the theatre or to an appropriate reception. The flower had to be dramatic and big so I opted for a tree peony flower which reached 13 cm in diameter once finished. To add more romance to my head piece I used some lace for the leaves and thin silk organza for lining. As planned the flower and the veil were to be mounted onto a headband, so I wrapped it in black habotai silk. It took me some time to cut and gather the right amount of veiling as I wanted the veil to sit snugly around the forehead and not look like a little cloud above the head.
For this time I did not go for the full face veil option as there might be less occasions to wear that kind of head piece. The one I have created has everything to make it a hair accessory that will not leave the person wearing it unnoticed: a bold dramatic flower in rich colour, a short but impressive birdcage veil in black and a comfortable silk wrapped headband to hold all this together.
The peony head piece with a veil will easily dress up a little black dress.

What about you? Would you wear a head piece with veil?


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