Bandeau

Women's short hairstyles during the 1920s were not without ornament. Small metal clasps with sparkling real or fake jewels held hair off the face or elaborate headdresses completely covered the hair. One especially popular adornment was the bandeau, a band circling the head at the brow to hold the hair. The bandeau could be a simple, plain cloth or a jeweled band. A plain bandeau was often worn for playing sports or with casual outfits. With especially fancy outfits, women wore bandeaus made of glittering fabric and sometimes stuck a feather or fastened a large jewel to the bandeau in the middle of the forehead. Bandeaus varied in width from about half an inch to four inches.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Batterberry, Michael, and Ariane Batterberry. Fashion: The Mirror of History. New York: Greenwich House, 1977.

Bigelow, Marybelle S. Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Publishing, 1970.

Contini, Mila. Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. Edited by James Laver. New York: Odyssey Press, 1965.

ban·deau / banˈdō/ • n. (pl. -deaux / -ˈdōz/ ) a narrow band worn around the head to hold the hair in position: their dusty blonde hair smoothly combed in bandeaux. ∎  a woman's strapless top formed from a band of fabric fitting around the bust: white two-piece bathing suit with quilted sateen bandeau top.

bandeau head- or hair-band. XVIII. — F., dim. of bande BAND2.