In a very odd coincidence, I found myself researching flapper hairstyles again, just as I did on this same week exactly two years ago. The last time, I talked about Irene Castle’s bobbed hair. Today, let’s look at what Irene probably wore over her trend-setting bob.

I’m working on the glossary for the 1930s novels, with Murder on the Orient Express as the current research project. In the story, a mysterious woman wearing a red kimono “embroidered with dragons” was seen walking down the train corridor by several passengers, including Hercule Poirot himself. Miss Debenham is unable to describe the woman further as she was wearing a “shingle cap.”

From my research on bobbed hair, I knew that shingled hair was a variation on the short style that was so popular in the 1920s. While the bob was an earth-shaking fashion statement when a woman’s long hair was considered her “crowning glory,” the shingle was simply a refinement. Shingled hair was even shorter than the bob, revealing the hairline on the back of a woman’s neck, and often angled to be a bit longer around the face. Requiring more frequent trims, it was considered an upscale style.

A ”shingle cap,” therefore, must have something to do with the hairstyle, right? I typed the phrase into the search engine, expecting an easy answer. I wound up wading through a lot of roofing articles and ads, which I didn’t expect, and only found the same two images with no explanation repeated on various websites.

The images appeared to be of crocheted caps and not particularly attractive, which led me to believe they were meant to be worn while sleeping so one’s short hair didn’t stick up weird in the morning. Further digging, however, turned up a film clip from 1926 that showed off a “shingle cap” that was elaborately beaded, more like something one would wear going out on the town. Also, it would be quite uncomfortable to sleep on all those beads!

As always, I figured there must be an expert on early 1900s headwear who would know much more than me, so I looked around for one. I found the Vintage Fashion Guild online and joined their forums as a guest to post my question. Over a thousand people looked at my post! And a number of vintage fashion experts answered it!

From them, I learned about boudoir caps, which may or may not include shingle caps. Boudoir caps are fancy little bits of lace that were not worn overnight but popped over one’s messy hair to be presentable. For instance, when a woman has to run down the train corridor to the toilet in the middle of the night.

Taking my cue from the experts, I dug a little deeper on boudoir caps, which led me to nightcaps, and the whole history of headwear for sleeping.

Originally, nightcaps were meant to keep one’s head warm in an unheated bedroom, which makes perfect sense. They were not meant to be fashionable, and as heating became more common during the late Victorian era, women stopped wearing nightcaps, teasing their grandmothers who continued the habit.

The Edwardian era, however, ushered in some extremely elaborate hairstyles that required curling and back-combing, and nightcaps made a comeback to protect the style and hide the curling papers. No longer were the caps heavy and ugly, however. Plain silk mobcaps were popular for wearing overnight to preserve already-curled hair, and dainty lace boudoir caps were worn at breakfast to hide unsightly curlers.

During the 1920s and 1930s, waved hair was all the rage, and headwear continued to be a useful accessory. In addition to caps for holding one’s waves in place, perfumed caps were worn to scent the hair, and silk caps to make the hair shiny. Caps also prevented hair products from staining the bed linens.

So, what kind of headwear was the lady in the red kimono really wearing?

Poirot suspects that the kimono belonged to Countess Andrenyi. Christie describes her as having “jet black hair” with a “small chic black toque perched at the fashionable outrageous angle.” To perch a hat requires hatpins, so her hair was probably long and rolled. The countess may have worn a boudoir cap to walk down the corridor to the toilet.

Mary Debenham is the one who calls it a “shingle cap.” Christie writes that Poirot admires Miss Debenham’s “burnished black head with its neat waves of hair.” It sounds like her hair was short and in the popular finger-waved style, which would require her to curl it nightly or at least protect the curls with an overnight cap.

Poirot himself doesn’t comment on the headwear of the lady in the red kimono, and it doesn’t matter to the story, but isn’t it fun to learn about the caps women wore in bed, in the boudoir, and at breakfast?

Image by Miriam and Ira D. Wallach, via Wikimedia Commons