Unique hair fascinators are not that difficult to find thanks to its recent resurgence in popularity. The recent push in the trend has been spurred by royalty, who ironically enough, is who first introduced the fashion to the world. There might be some argument as to when they first appeared, but no one can argue that they appear again, and again in fashion. Fascinators are truly a timeless accessory.

Certain fashion gurus will tell you that fascinators first appeared in the Tudor period in England. Milliners got their name in this era, around the 1500s. English women started to adorn their hair with intricate veils and small hats. Details such as feathers, pearls, and rhinestones would be incorporated into either the hair or onto small hats.

 

This trend of adorning the hair, more than creating a purposeful hat, continued into the 1600’s. This time it would be the French pushing the trend with a new hair fashion called, Fontange. It was brought to popularity by a wig maker, Marquise de Fontange. He would incorporate elaborate embellishments such as flowers, jewels, feathers, small hats and other items. It would be 200 more years before Marie Antionette and her fantastic wigs would become famous and infamous. Many might believe she is the pioneer for fascinators when in truth she just reintroduced them to fashion.

Women’s hats of all types would fall out of favor in women’s fashions for quite some time. In the 1800’s a woman’s hat was typically a scarf, bonnet, or veil. Popular headwear fashions at that time were the cloud or the fussy balaclava. It mostly consisted of a scarfed hood made from a finely knitted or crocheted material.

Hats, for women, would make a comeback in the later 1800’s early 1900’s. Flapper fashions would once again introduce elaborate adornments to the hair that could be considered a fascinators. The very tiny hats or elaborate hair decorations would make another resurgence in the late 1950′ to early 1960’s. Tiny pillbox hats, that had little function other than to adorn the hair, were popular with women around the world.

The actual term of fascinators is purported to have not been invented until the 21st century with the resurgence of the fashion once again in the 1980’s. The brightly colored veiled numbers were quite popular in the glam scene of the 80’s.

In the current decade, fascinators have come full circle becoming popular once again thanks to royalty. Recently fascinators have split off into two factions, the hatinator and the hair fascinator. Unique hair fascinators are embellishments made to affix directly to the hair. Hatinators are more of an actual hat, although quite functionless just as the hair fascinator. What every you chooses to call only the name will go out of fashion.