The Gele

I have been trying to make a mock up example of a possible headdress. I have found that starching a heavy weight calico works really well and easily allows the fabric to be wrapped and tied around the head, but still be stiff enough to hold its shape. There is, however, a draw back with this method as once the headpiece has been removed it does not hold its shape and begins to fall apart. This means that they would have to potentially be re-tied for every performance. A few solutions could be making the fabric stiffer with an inter webbing between two pieces of calico and then sewing parts of the piece in place. Another could be to stitch in some wire or flexible boning along the edges to make it more sturdy. These are all things I am hoping can be discussed with the group during the tutorial.