Headdress

Unknown

1800–1939 · [no medium available] · Costume Institute

This cap is intricately worked in coiled copper and silver-wrapped thread, sewn scrolling over a canvas batting. The canvas in the spaces between the metalwork has been cut or drawn out, leaving an openwork effect to reveal the wearer's hair. Traditionally, young Croatian women wore their long hair in two braids coiled up onto the back of the head. Sometimes, a finely pleated white cotton kerchief would be worn over the hat. A rear flap modestly protects the nape of the wearer's neck. The interior label of the cap suggests that it dates to the period immediately after the country of Yugoslavia was so named in 1929– the country itself only in existence since 1918 when the "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes" was created following the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War 1. At the time the cap was made and purchased, it was presented as "Yugoslavian"– a melting pot combination of the disparate cultural and religious practices of the regions of (now independent) Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1800–1939

Medium

[no medium available]

Culture

European, Eastern

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. W. Whitewright Watson, 1939