Domus Birettarum

Lent 3

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:30:56 PST

Yes, ok, we skipped a Sunday, but we’re busy here cooking something new up. This should be the source of not a little alarm.

Today’s offering is a suitable abstemious and chaste white brocade biretta, worn by Bishop Bonner of the Pentecostal Elim Church. We rather like the idea of liturgically coloured birettas; sure as we are that they will bring many of you out in hives. They have a certain joie de vivre about them, and now spring is finally upon us I am sure we could all do with a bit of that.

Lent 1

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 07:27:58 PST

For those of you in the doldrums of Lent 1, we thought we’d raise your already flagging spirits with an entirely gold lamé Spanish bonete; nothing quite says penitence, fasting, and abstinence like an utterly unrepentant hat. Proof if proof were needed that you simply cannot over-accessorize.

Surely another piece of adornment for statuary you say, but no; this is in fact to be worn by a Pentecostal apostle. You might accuse us of being a bit of a broad church here at this frousty gothic convent, but we’re always happy to entertain the inventive.

We’re in for it if Mother Prioress gets wind, but for the next few days we’ll try to post some of our more unusual confections for your delectation. Before we’re handed the flagellum. Again.

Canons Regular of the Mother of God

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 08:59:00 PDT

Not to be confused with the hat of a Norbertine Canon, having as it does three instead of four blades, here we proudly present the Bireta of les Chanoines Réguliers de la Mère de Dieu, a relatively new order, founded in 1997. A curt 'not so you'd notice' has emanated from behind the pages of the Racing Post, though if this link is anything to go by Mother Prioress may have a point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR2y8S7gPsE . We don't presume to know our readership completely, but we rather suspect that you'll probably like a bit of That Sort of Thing.

The Sanctum Sanctorum

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:03:07 PDT

If ever you’re so lucky, or so unwise, as to cross the imposing neo-gothic arches of DB Towers, and you make it past the gun turrets and barbed wire, you might just sneak a glimpse of the beating heart of the convent hat factory. To do so would place your very soul in mortal peril, so in true Willy Wonka fashion we have invited you dear reader, digitally at any rate, to witness the secret world of the ecclesiastical milliner. As you can see from the pictures, the walls are festooned with every conceivable flavour of Biretta known to man, and bizarrely still the number increases as new discoveries are made, new combinations unearthed. Some people, people like you and people like us, get rather excited about that sort of thing. Mother Prioress says she doesn’t know about excited, but she does know that we’re ill.

Our sincere apologies for the lack of Material. We’ve been up to all sorts, but new items for your viewing pleasure will be coming soon.

Yes, we love this country…

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:50:00 PST

…being the national anthem of the homeland to the recipient of this, even if we do say so ourselves, splendid example of craftsmanship. Made on the 4^th January 2012, but kept from your screens so as not to spoil the surprise, as it is a birthday present for a Norwegian Rector from east London. If you’re reading this Father, many happy returns from all the good sisters of DB Towers, ourselves also naturally, and the customary tight lipped salutations of the day from Mother Prioress.

The creation of this piece, and the dramatic weather at the time of writing, cast something of a Nordic air about the convent. Sister Brunhilde was apprehended skateboarding around the cloister with this four horned helmet at a rakish angle atop her head whilst playing Ride of the Valkyries on the convent gramophone. Sadly Brunhildr is no match for the mighty Thor that is Mother Prioress.

Natural Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:38:00 PST

Today's offering is a Royal blue biretta worn by the Independent Filipino Church. Never let it be said we do a half-hearted job here at DB Towers. Some of the younger nuns are out there in the field, travelling the world to find interesting hats for you to enjoy.

Seeing Red

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:07:51 PST

Aptly, as the snow around the convent begins to melt we proudly present to you, a cardinal's "winter" biretta. It is made of fine wool serge. Today this is the only biretta a cardinal may wear outside of liturgical functions, as when he is in choir dress, he wears the watered silk biretta instead. In abito piano it must be the wool version, as displayed here.

Most cardinals these days wear only the watered silk scarlet pileolus outside liturgical functions, which as you might expect is utterly beyond our comprehension. Really, can you imagine being allowed to wear a hat and then choosing not to?

Powder Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:34:07 PST

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking they've excelled themselves with this one. And you'd be right. We've revisited the biretta of the Superior of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, with a watered silk outer and silk lining, but topped with the extraordinary plumage of a Gamarelli silk pom-pom. Sometimes when all the sisters are asleep, we like to sit, quietly, just marvelling at it.

Best be going. Mother Prioress has hired in a pre-lenten devotional coach who used to be a chaplain to the Royal Marines. She's stood at the door brandishing the convent's arctic fire hose and claims she can smell pride in here...

Red Velvet #2

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:32:38 PST

More sumptuousness today, for here we most proudly present the The Burgundy Red Velvet Biretta worn by the Dean of Paderborn Cathedral. It is piped in matching burgundy, lined in silk, and crowned with a magnificent silk confection from Gamerelli. We're loathe to call it a pom-pom really, I mean - just look at it. Exquisite is it not?

A hoarse bark from behind the racing post informs us that red velvet or not, cooing over a fancy hat isn't going to shift the snow that's currently mounting up on the lady chapel altar.

Red Velvet

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:27:48 PST

Lavish, frankly, is all we can say. Here is the scarlet red velvet biretta as worn by the Provost of Paderborn Cathedral, adorned tastefully as it is with scarlet velvet.

Many of the dear sisters would be grateful of a hat of such virtue; the convent gas metre has seized up in the freezing cold, and won't even admit the fifty pences from last years lent boxes. We wonder if Paderborn cathedral ever had problems with the heating, thus necessitating a toasty warm biretta for its hierarchy?

More sumptuousness to follow tomorrow.

A grey…

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:07:07 PST

…and wintry day here at DB Towers, and it is that our thoughts turn to this offering, a suitably Grey Biretta to coordinate with the rather unforgiving sky outside.

This Biretta is worn by the Old Polish Catholic Church of the Mariavites (http://www.mariawita.pl/htmls/indexang.html), which at least provides a note of the exotic to brighten your afternoon. Mother seems to be minded that if we’re in the business of making grey birettas, surely pinstripe is not far away.

It’s been a while…

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:12:09 PST

…has it not, dear readers? Our sincere apologies for frankly being a bit slapdash with our blog entries, we hope this delightful royal blue watered silk biretta will make up for it. It is worn by some Episcopalian Clergy in the United States in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We’d say get your orders in for Candlemass now, but we shan’t for fear of the excoriating anathemas of Mother Prioress, denouncing us as she is wont to do as usurers and simonists of the worst sort.

Pretty in Pink

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:10:01 PDT

Herewith the pink tufted hat of an Apostolic Protonotary, and a fine looking hat it is too. More of this we shall not say, lest the contentious amongst you be tempted to commit internet-related wickedness on the comment thread…

Statue, bro?

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 07:55:01 PDT

Another recherché little request has come in: a biretta for a statue. In this instance, the statue to be hatted is of St Therese of Avila, who is a Doctor of the Church. Naturally Gold lining, piping and tassel rather befit the Church Triumphant. We've some posh customers these days...

Mother has concerns that we haven’t heard the last of this sort of request.

Crossing the Bosphorus

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 07:09:57 PDT

Never let it be said we were a single issue sort of blog. Multi-faceted, that’s us. For yes, here we most proudly present to you the first hat from the Orthodox church. This hat is called a kalimavkion.

Frankly, we think it rather splendid. Its owner promises to send pictures when it may be put to full use, after his forthcoming ordination.

Mother Prioress chuntered something about inappropriate about Tzatzkiki in the refectory, but we’re sure with a few Metaxxas she’ll be as keen on our new enterprises as she was with the old ones.

No half and half affair, I mean

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:14:33 PDT

Well, it seems we're going up in the world. We've made a nice new hat for one the chaplains of Her Majesty the Queen. Off the record, naturally, but we're sure he wouldn't mind us previewing it here before delivery... Mother Prioress has been muttering away behind the pages of the Racing Post about 'ideas above their stations' and 'a hiding to nothing if the authorities find out'. We're sure they'd never be so unkind...

But they’re both so different!

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:34:09 PDT

Mother Prioress: [Mother and some novices are deciding between two similar knotted girdles for an order habit. Father Andy sniggers because he thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?

Father Andy Sachs No. No, no. Nothing's... You know, it's just that both those girdles look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about all this stuff and, uh...

Mother Prioress: 'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your vestry and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue chasuble, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take your Mass too seriously to care about what vestments you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that chasuble is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually, cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2011, Domus Biettarum did a collection of cerulean birettas. And then I think it was Gamerelli... wasn't it who showed cerulean skull caps? I think we need a skull cap here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different ecclesiastical tailors. And then it, uh, filtered down through the Via Duomo and then trickled on down into some tragic Discount Supplier where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of pounds and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the ecclesiastical fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the chasuble that was selected for you by the people in this room; from a pile of… stuff.

The above scene has been lovingly plagiarized for the benefit of ANYONE thinking of describing this biretta as anything to do with the ICKSP or College of Our Lady of Hanworth. It is in fact, the biretta of a Claretian priest, and our Spanish friends assure us it is most certainly cerulean.

Blowing our own trumpet, yet again.

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:14:12 PDT

We could not help but post this from our seminarians in the Phillipines:

"what you are doing is o mere pastime or simple act of kindness but more importantly, a great act of service to the Church, a particular charism for the preservation and renewal of Liturgy and Tradition. Because of your kindness, you now have another four seminarians constantly remembering you in their prayers. May God continue to bless you so that you may persevere in your very peculiar (and most needed) service to the Church!"

Well that's warmed the cockles of our hearts, dear reader, it really has. Mother Prioress has has wandered off murmering: "well they're on the money with 'peculiar'".

El Mostruo

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 09:02:00 PDT

Deep in the very vaults, the catacombs of this wind-rattled frowsty gothic convent, behind doors marked top-secret, work has been going on for some time. Finished, photographed, and finally here, we present to you, with fear and trepidation: El Mostruo Spanish Bonete.

Not only is this hat twice the height of a Spanish biretta, it is greater in width also, following the angles of the Spanish bonete to their logical conclusion, as shown here:

The result? A hat which looks like part of a costume from Aida, or possibly Jesus Christ Superstar. A biretta to dwarf all others, and which renders the priest beneath it a mere afterthought, a motile speaking plinth whose purpose is merely to display the ludicrous confection. It is for this, and so many very excellent reasons, that Mother Prioress has forbidden the creation of another one. Ever.

Purple Rain #3

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 07:11:00 PDT

The following exotic confection is the permissible hat of the Lerida Chaplain to the King of Spain. It is amaranth with a green pom-pom. We had originally created this design in bright red, but it put us in mind of Christmas decorations a little too much, and Mother Prioress rather frowns on such jollities, especially in Ordinary Time.

Purple Haze #3

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:02:00 PDT

Herewith the hat of an Acquarian Catholic Community prelate. We’ve no idea if this hat exists, has been worn, or even conceived by anyone outside of DB Towers. It is navy blue, with a purple pom-pom, and we include for completeness, which is so very important.

Purple Haze #2

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:56:00 PDT

Here we present an interesting hat, with permission of Fr Paul Spilsbury a Doctor of Philosophy (Bristol, dept of Theology), for whom we made the article. It has been made in the appropriate colours for the University of Bristol, so as to avoid what Fr Spilsbury describes as a pontifical solecism. Mother Prioress wholeheartedly concurs. It has been piped accordingly, and has a matching lining which we neglected to photograph - how remiss.

Purple Rain #2

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 06:45:01 PDT

Sporting, once again, a frankly magnificent Gamarelli plumage, here we give to you the Latin biretta of a Papal Nuncio. As you can no doubt tell, its purple lining is what sets it apart from that of the Latin bishop.

The first step...

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 05:35:00 PDT

...to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. So it is that we find ourselves, as usual, to the left of leftfield, with this example. We see a hat, we have to copy it, we can’t help ourselves. This purple bishop’s biretta has a black pom-pom. We have no idea why, as of yet.

Pretty in Pink

noreply@blogger.com (Team DB) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 04:19:00 PDT

Mother Prioress is convinced we have lost the plot, entirely, if we ever had it in the first place. Here today we give you a pink silk biretta, the logic for which is as follows: as it is customary for Cardinals to change to purple cassocks for lent and advent, surely pink or rose birettas would be requisite for the Gaudete and Laetare Sundays? Yes, we know it’s a dignity/insignia thing, not a liturgical colour thing, but is it not a thing to behold? And anyway a number of Anglican bishops in India, in areas where the priests wear white instead of black, wear pink instead of purple. Therefore, if they wore a biretta, therefore, it would surely be pink. So there.