Veil

(Italian variant, veletta, is derived from veil, but is a feminine diminutive that accurately conveys the delicacy of what English can only attempt to identify as a “hat-veil.” The Italian term almost equals in grace the evanescent, brief span of fabric — tulle, lace — that was used to cover the face or only the eyes of women in the nineteenth century.) Simple, almost always black, the veletta, or veil, embellished by delicate reliefs, by tiny vague embroideries, enveloped the face between chin and cap, dangling from a cunning small hat, knotted around the back of the neck, more as an homage to seduction, captured so frequently by Boldini in his portraits of ladies, than to modesty. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, dangling from hats, the veil barely covered the eyes, accentuating the gaze with its mystery. The fashion of the tailleur, along with boaters and straw hats, would relegate it among the many ornaments of a forgotten style; but the veletta would still have a chance to transform itself from a weapon of seduction into a useful defensive tool, a veritable curtain against the dust of the road during the early trips by automobile: worn over the hat and fastened to the back of the neck with fluttering knots, it evoked the old loosely worn veils that were standard fasteners for hats in the French First Empire style. In more recent years, during the cyclical revivals, the veil has reemerged, a short, taut mask over the eyes, dangling from tiny little hats, almost as if to emphasize, with ironic nostalgia, a fashion that was more feminized than feminine. Wally Toscanini, the daughter of the great conductor, always wore a veil, and did so extraordinarily well, and not only to cover the effects of the passing years.