Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
The calash was a type of headwear first fashionable in the late 18th century when large, high hairstyles were in fashion. The spacious shape of the bonnet was large enough to accommodate the elaborate hairstyles of the period. The style was revived from the 1820s to the early 1840s when towers of curls became fashionable. When hairstyles became more compact, the calash went out of fashion once again.
The name for the style comes from caleche, the French word for carriage, because the collapsible cane structure resembled the hood of a carriage. Many calashes were treated to be waterproof, although this example shows no signs of such a treatment.
