Fascinator

Since the 1990s, the term has referred to a type of formal headwear worn as an alternative to the hat; it is usually a large decorative design attached to a band or clip.

[1][2] The European fashion of decorating the female head with a round-brimmed headgear (or hat) can be traced back to the late Renaissance era of the 16th century when some rare Tudor bonnets appear to have a brim.

Queen Marie Antoinette made the fashion of using ostrich plumes as a head decoration popular among the European royal courts.

Increased trade with Africa meant ostrich feathers were becoming more readily available to be used in fashion items, although this was still costly and therefore affordable only to the aristocracy and wider upper classes.

[5] The earliest citation identified by the Oxford English Dictionary for the use of the word in this sense is from an advertisement in the Daily National Intelligencer of December 1853.

[7] The "cloud" is described in 1871 as being "a light scarf of fine knitting over the head and round the neck, [worn] instead of an opera hood when going out at night".

[6] Although they did not give the style its name, the milliners Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy are credited with having established and popularised fascinators in 20th-century couture.