Or hats, or "doilies" until the 1970s in the US. I was living in Berkeley the first time I ever saw a woman in church without a head covering and it was the 1968. She was Dutch and there was a lot of whispering about it. People were saying things like "They stopped insisting on hats in Europe because everyone was so poor after the war." Silly, I know, but that is what the other women were saying and all of them kept their heads covered. Many Catholic women kept a circle of lace folded in their purses just in case they decided to stop in church in the middle of the week.
I would kind of agree with you: head coverings stopped about 1970 or so. Among my Catholic school friends, we vied for the prettiest mantillas and the most beautiful rosary beads.