It has been suggested that Renaissance Europe experienced an astonishing feather craze related to the increasing diversity of headdresses. Hats of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were only occasionally decorated with feathers. Like single ostrich feathers, most are used in their natural black and white shape, or are processed and simply bleached. However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, feathers became an integral fashion item, appearing in increasingly luxurious headdresses (Fig. 1).

At this time, feathers were full of various cultural meanings; not only promoting consumerism for feathers in Spain, but also revitalizing the handicraft culture of Renaissance Europe/zd/ym