Adding Glamour with a Vintage Style Hair Flower: A Tutorial

 

Ah yes, the vintage style hair flower tutorial . . . I think when it comes to the vintage style scene the hair flower may be the very first accessory that comes to mind. It is feminine, easy to wear, and just oozes vintage too even though a look though period images shows the hair flower was kind of rare. Seriously, looking at original images of everyday women, their heads were not always adorned with flowers, you are more likely to see plain well done hair or a hat, scarf, or even a snood. No matter where you fall in the world of vintage, as an enthusiast or reenactor, hair flowers are everywhere. For my own style, I normally do not wear hair flowers except for in the evening. I will not wear them during the day normally as I will choose a hat or something similar . .. When I do sport one during the way its in the afternoon when maybe I'm in a pitstop before going out to dinner and don't have an opportunity to change.  Just because I do not wear them often does not mean I have a beef against them . . .I love them but only in moderation.

Today I want to offer you a tutorial on how I make my hair flowers. You will see that I do not use glues of any kind but will instead sew my flowers to a comb or clip. I do this so I can rearrange or re use my flowers easier. . .

 To get started, you will need flowers. Shocking I know . . . . but hang with me here. You can use the craft store variety or you can shell out and invest in vintage millinery flowers. Mine are vintage dead stock or NOS millinery flowers. I used to use the craft store kind but now all I use are vintage flowers. To me, it makes a lot of sense (vintage clothes = vintage flowers)  but they are expensive. The quality is definitely better but you get what you pay for. If you want to buy vintage millinery flowers like I did look for "lots" or large groups of flowers. . . Those are the best deals. . Buying one at a time can be pricy but you can get what ever you want when buying one at a time too. Sometimes those lots can get you stuff you have not idea what to do with.

Aside from flowers you will need for this tutorial a hair comb (which can be found at drug stores or your beauty supply place), thread, needles, scissors, wire snippers for trimming floral stems. Now, if you do not want to sew these then you can use glue. I would recommend a hot glue gun. For sewing, I was able to make a knot to anchor my thread but a bit of tacky glue can help if you need to keep your thread from undoing on you.

To get started, I am using a large silk lilly and its leaves. This lilly came on a very long stem and so I pulled out the leaves and trimmed the wire stem so that it was just long enough to wrap around the top of my comb like seen below. Then I took my needle and thread and stitched the stem to the comb. I used a blanket stitch actually to sew the lilly to the comb. I kept my flower positioned on the top but with enough stem to adjust it as I wanted. I was able to tie off my thread fine but you can use a small dab of tacky glue to secure your thread. The reason why I NEVER use glue is because glue is permanent and if I ever wanted to re do my flowers if would not be able to do so. By sewing, I can re arrange to my hearts content and not do much damage to the flower or its stem.

 Once I was happy with my flower, I took the leaves and threaded the fine leaf wires through the thread and also wrapped the wires around the flower base. I positioned my leaves in such a way that the comb was covered up fairly well.

And that was my lily hair flower!! I kept this one super simple because this Lily is so exotic and pretty that I wanted it to stand alone. I felt like it did not need any more accompanying flowers. Here you can see how the leaves of the lily are arranged so that you really cannot see the comb. 

Another hair flower I did was a white rose. This rose is a vintage millinery flower as well and like the lily, I only did one paired with its own leaves. To go with this hair flower I did a matching corsage to create a whole suite.  . . . Because what could possibly more glamourous?
The rose hair flower was made just like the lilly in that I stitched it to the comb, wrapped the leaves around the comb and the flower and then arranges the leaves to cover the comb up.

Like the lily, there is only the rose and foliage and nothing else. The corsage, however, has vintage millinery berries added for more color and character. I like to keep my hair flowers simple if I can but when it comes to my corsages more is more.

So there you have it, my take on the hair flower tutorial. If you are interested in the rest of the look, the dress is a 40s original. It's a black rayon crepe cocktail dress with sequins along the front bodice and skirt. Hopefully one of these days you will see the whole dress. I found this before the craziness took hold at a local antiques shop for a deal. The jewelry is rhinestones - vintage of course. The hair was from Vintage Hairstyling by Lauren Rennells. I treated myself to her hair and make up book to step up my hair styling and make up skills and these are good books. I loved her variations of the pompadours and this is one of them. . .  Her make up book offered such good history and ideas for make up that I had to try some out. You may have noticed my added beauty mark in this post. . .I was really interested in her segment on these and I was feeling adventurous. So I added one. What do you think?