Dead Chicken Hats

Dead Chicken Hats
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In the beginning was the hood - a simple, loose-fitting, practical garment for keeping the rain and the sun off your head. It could be open or closed down the front, have a cuff around the face, a long or short shoulder cape and a tail, or liripipe, down the back.
Style 'Rufus' is closed down the front and has a short to medium liripipe. It comes in lined, unlined or part-lined versions. The fully-lined hoods are reversible, giving you two hoods for the price of one!
Linings are usually of a contrast material and some models are edged with contrast hand stitching.

On warm days the hood could be slipped off and the 'chaperon' (little cap or little cape) worn like a muffler. These hoods could also be parti-coloured, that is, having the sides of different colours.
As time went on the chaperon became more fancy, with the liripipe trailing further down the back and fancy edges (dagging) to the cape. The hood became more fitted and often fastened at the neck.

Then, one particularly warm day around 1300 or so, some bright spark decided that he didn't want all that warm fabric around his neck, but he would like to stop his bald head burning. So he took off his chaperon, rolled back the cuff and stuck his head in where his face should have been. The cape draped artistically over one side and the liripipe dangled down on the other and - behold - some of the silliest-looking headgear ever to have been deliberately worn was invented.
Incidentally, the earliest known printed version of Little Red Riding Hood was called 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge'.
Here is Geoffry Chaucer (1343 - 1400) wearing chaperon hood as a hat.

Oddly, the idea caught on and chaperons evolved that were made only to be worn as hats. By the mid 1400s the rolled-up cuff had become a padded rondel, the cape a ruffled cockscomb and the liripipe even longer and thinner, sometimes even reaching floor level. These are the famous Dead Chicken Hats.
Style Marcus is shown with a bi-coloured rondel trimmed with passemaine trim and with with the dagged liripipe draped across the front and wrapped over the top of the head.

No little fluffy creatures were harmed in the construction of this page - however, untold millions of invertebrates with an inappropriate number of legs may have been inadvertantly hoovered up in the elasped time.

Additions and corrections are welcome, accompanied by referenced sources, to seamstress(at)deadchickenhat(dot)com.

All mistakes are entirely of my own invention, and I claim world-wide copyright on them.

Dead Chicken Hats Biblical Greek Roman Medieval Tudor Stuart Character Glossary Gallery Free Patterns Free Leaflets Videos and Tutorials - NEW! Why The Fish? Fun Stuff Real Chicken Hut About Us About our Costumes Garment Care Fabric & Construction Refunds and Returns Hiring We Don't Sell That, But... Shipping Privacy Policies & Terms Contact Us See-Saw Maths Just What Is A Dead Chicken Hat, Anyway? .	In the beginning was the hood - a simple, loose-fitting, practical garment for keeping the rain and the sun off your head. It could be open or closed down the front, have a cuff around the face, a long or short shoulder cape and a tail, or liripipe, down the back. Style 'Rufus' is closed down the front and has a short to medium liripipe. It comes in lined, unlined or part-lined versions. The fully-lined hoods are reversible, giving you two hoods for the price of one! Linings are usually of a contrast material and some models are edged with contrast hand stitching.
		On warm days the hood could be slipped off and the 'chaperon' (little cap or little cape) worn like a muffler. These hoods could also be parti-coloured, that is, having the sides of different colours. As time went on the chaperon became more fancy, with the liripipe trailing further down the back and fancy edges (dagging) to the cape. The hood became more fitted and often fastened at the neck.
	Then, one particularly warm day around 1300 or so, some bright spark decided that he didn't want all that warm fabric around his neck, but he would like to stop his bald head burning. So he took off his chaperon, rolled back the cuff and stuck his head in where his face should have been. The cape draped artistically over one side and the liripipe dangled down on the other and - behold - some of the silliest-looking headgear ever to have been deliberately worn was invented. Incidentally, the earliest known printed version of Little Red Riding Hood was called 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge'. Here is Geoffry Chaucer (1343 - 1400) wearing chaperon hood as a hat.
		Oddly, the idea caught on and chaperons evolved that were made only to be worn as hats. By the mid 1400s the rolled-up cuff had become a padded rondel, the cape a ruffled cockscomb and the liripipe even longer and thinner, sometimes even reaching floor level. These are the famous Dead Chicken Hats. Style Marcus is shown with a bi-coloured rondel trimmed with passemaine trim and with with the dagged liripipe draped across the front and wrapped over the top of the head.