A Bollenhut is a formal headdress worn since about c.1750 by Protestant women as part of their local costume (Tracht) in three neighbouring villages of Gutach, Kirnbach and Hornberg-Reichenbach, in Black Forest (a great forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany, bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south). With its woollen pompoms, the picturesque-looking red Bollenhut has become a symbol of the Black Forest as a whole, despite its very local origins. The red pom-poms and white brim of the Bollenhut also is said to have inspired the top layer of the Black Forest Cake.
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