Snood (headgear)

This article is about a netlike hair covering. For a scarf, see Snood scarf.
19th century painting of a woman wearing a snood (by Adolph Menzel)
Two women working at a Texas Naval Air Base in 1942, wearing hairnets (snoods)

A snood (/snuːd/) is a type of traditionally female headgear, with two types known. The long-gone Scottish snood was a circlet made of ribbon worn by Scottish young women as a symbol of chastity. The other type was intended to hold the hair in a cloth or net-like hat.[1][2] In the most common form, the headgear resembles a close-fitting hood worn over the back of the head. It is similar to a hairnet,[2] but snoods typically have a looser fit.[3]

Decorative hairnets, popular among women in the Victorian era, were referred to as snoods. This term was then applied to any netlike hat, and, in the 1930s, to a net bag headgear. This latter meaning became popular during the Second World war when women joined the workforce en masse and were required to wear the headgear to avoid their hair getting caught by the moving parts of the factory machinery.[1]

For a short time during WWII, the snoods were at the height of fashion (a hit of Paris collections in 1939).[4]

  1. ^ a b snood at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ^ a b "History of Hair Covering Part #1: Snoods". Archived from the original on 21 August 2019. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
  3. ^ Karen Roemuss; Martin Green; Leo Palladino (2018). Professional Hairdressing: Australian and New Zealand Edition (2nd ed.). ISBN 978-0170415927. Snoods ... They're like a hair net but have a looser fit and much coarser mesh ...
  4. ^ Blum 1993, p. 28.