Over the past few months I’ve been thinking of adding to our Historic Jewelry collection a line of vintage headdresses. However it’s not easy at all since I’m looking for very special hair ornaments. Maybe I’m too demanding… But our space is very special and unique.
A couple of months ago I found by chance this picture, and I love the headdresses from the very first look.
It’s just what I was looking for!
An elegant, timeless and easy-to-wear piece that could be decorated with the many vintage accessories we have in our space. Our collection of brooches, earrings, ribbons, laces or buttons is so huge that headdresses might be a fantastic way of showing them.
The ideal image is a beautiful miniature in watercolour over ivory by the English artista Reginald Easton and represents Bessie Florence “Floss” Scarlett Gibson.
The lady is sat in front of a beach, wearing a dress in beige color over a white shirt and a bow in brown. The perfect combination is the rose she wears in her breast and her head dressed with a little headdress in sheep skin fabric and decorated with a brooch with diamonds. That piece has been the inspiration for most of our haddresses.
The story behind this lady is a bit sad though. She was the only daughter of the Honorable Ruth Hester Frances Scarlett. After her mother passed, Floss was adopted by her aunt Jane Gibson. She and her husband never had the chance to give birth.
In February 1871, Floss got married with the Coronel Leopold James Scarlett, a member of the Scoth Guard. The couple had six sons and a daughter.
During her life, Floss got her heart broken several times, since she ouslasted her husband and four of her sons. The youngest dead in an Australian submarine in 1914, whe he only was 29.
She spent the last years of her life almost totally isolated in the Penenden House in Boxley. Her daughter Ruth and her sons Hugh and Percy ouslasted her.
We’ve called this collection Floss, after this beautiful and brave woman who lived her maturity in England, during the 20’s.
The Vintage by Lopez-Linares “Floss” take us back to an era when women had to fight for her better life.
