The overarching trend in women’s undergarments in the early twentieth-century was towards ever-greater exposure of the skin, even ‘skin worship’ as a new religion (Cunnington, 134). Boudoir caps do not follow this direction. Instead of exposing an erotically charged part of the female body, the hair, they cover it up. The first element of the boudoir cap’s carefully crafted yet contained sex appeal is its connection to a woman’s hair. In 1926 the Times of India claimed that the ribbons hanging down the back of a particular boudoir cap “are guaranteed to create the feeling of the long hair which women once grew on their heads.”. They concluded that “Long ribbon tresses on boudoir caps are one of the latest feminine dodges for imitating long hair.” (The Times of India, 30 Oct 1926, 21). Other elements of the decorations of a boudoir cap can also be taken to imitate women’s hair styles. Lace ruffles around the face, especially the puff-like shape near the ears, bear resemblance to contemporary hair trends like kiss curls. Using lace and ribbon to create stylised hair appears not so unusual if one remembers other 1920s headwear that emulates the look of waved hair like raffia wigs or certain styles of evening hats which sport waved lines all round, giving the appearance of drawn on marcel-waves.

Other types of headwear have also been taken to represent hair. De Courtais for example considers a bridal veil to be “a substitute for flowing hair, the centuries-old symbol of virginity” (De Courtais, 176). Ofek establishes female hair as the most common fetish of the nineteenth- century and argues for the great importance of long, groomed hair in the middle-class ideal of femininity (Ofek, 17). As the fashion for bobbed hair had literally significantly reduced this symbolical part of a woman’s body, it makes sense that the erotic value of hair was transferred to an artificial version of it. Here, the boudoir cap is again able to maintain older elements of sex appeal by imitating the look of longer, dressed hair.