I have seen a handful of real life headgears, but none past the 90s, ever.

First one I ever saw was a high pull on a boy about my own age at an air show. I was fascinated, but didn't want to stare. This was in elementary school. Never saw him again.

Between elementary school and middle school, I went to summer school, and while there I saw a facemask! A girl I had known from scouting went to that school with me, so she was a casual acquaintance, and as soon as she saw me she came up and talked to me, and we were "school buddies" for the whole six week program. She had this headgear on her face like I'd never, ever seen before, white plastic strip across her forehead and chin and a bar across her lips with rubber bands going inside! It definitely changed her speech, but she wasn't difficult to understand. She was also completely unfazed by it, was her usual social self, had no trouble talking to people and talking in class, and never mentioned what it was or what it was for. She did not have fixed braces. I saw her again in the fall when she and I started attending the same middle school, but this headgear was nowhere to be found! I studied her teeth carefully when she spoke and saw there were square wire hooks along the sides of her top molars, and one morning I saw her getting off the bus and went to talk to her and saw there were still impressions on her forehead and chin from the plastic of the facemask, so obviously she was still wearing it at night.

That same year, I also started school with a boy who wore cervical headgear all day, every day, except at lunch when he'd take it out and leave it on the table. He wore it the entire three years of middle school, full time except for lunch, and the last year of school he had some kind of enormous plastic appliance attached to it (I know it was attached because he would take both out at lunch, still attached!) that made his speech really slurred. But he also did not wear fixed braces. I really, really wanted to make friends with him but he never seemed interested and I assumed I was not nerdy enough for him. We are good friends now (although we live in different cities) and he has since told me that that is not a thing. No guy, ever, would say "that girl is not nerdy enough for me." We were both just really young and socially inept, lol. Once we started high school he got fixed braces, then got them off, then got them on again. He got them off for good our senior year but started wearing some plastic removable thing again that was like an upper and lower retainer attached together or something. We hung out a few times in college and he was wearing that then too, and the headgear still at night!

In eighth grade I had this class mate who was really snotty and stuck up and very full of herself. She had this "perfect" pale blonde hair that she always pointed out was "natural" (we all had natural hair when we were that young, so I didn't really know what she was talking about) and was just... not very nice. Not to me and not to a lot of people. She was aways criticizing and making fun of things she saw on others, like... my shoes coming apart, or something. This was in the 90s and wearing "old" looking things was sort of the style, you know, grunge-looking stuff, but she was like little miss perfect. One day I passed her in the hall and she was wearing a high pull headgear, just like that boy I had seen so many years ago at the air show! Her hair was up in pigtails between the straps, and she was surrounded by her cadre of girlfriends who were loudly and continuously assuring her that it wasn't that bad, that no one was staring, and that her mom was so mean! It was all over the school by lunch time that this girl's mom had made her wear her headgear to school as punishment for something, and her mom even CAME to our school to make sure she was wearing it! (At the same time, the guy I mentioned above was still wearing his, and his removable appliance, every day like it was no big deal, so hers was not the only headgear anyone had ever seen or anything.) This punishment was apparently only for one day, though, because the next day it was gone and never to be seen again. She did not have fixed braces either, and she also got them on in high school.

The last headgear I ever saw was in '99. I was working in a drugstore and a girl and her mom came through my check out line. I had been in a play with the girl a few months before so I knew her really well, but she was several years younger than I was. She was wearing a cervical headgear that stuck way out from her face and she kept pulling at it and her mom kept pushing her hand away from it. I assumed she had just gotten it on and was told not to take it off for a bit, because I never saw her wearing it again. Her mom recognized me and made polite conversation while I rang her up but the girl just stared off in another direction. She didn't look embarrassed as much as dazed.

And that was it. Never saw a headgear in public after that.

Ever seen anyone in public with headgear/ yes, me! ;-D

Okay, seriously now:

I've seen a few in my life...  Same as everyone else: a short, unexpected "what the heck was that?" sighting.  I can remember maybe half a dozen instances. But one sighting many years ago stands out. 

I was about 15, 16, and had to wear headgear with my braces, which I never did.  I hated that bloody thing! 
I live in an in-land city, and a trip to the coast during the summer holidays is always a treat.  One year we were on this vacation, and my mum made sure I brought my headgear along - just in case she is in one of her foul moods and makes me wear it.  I really hoped that the holiday will put my mum in a relaxed mood, and that she will be so chilled that she would forget that her elder offspring is actually supposed to be geared up.   And it worked. 

One day on this holiday I was walking through the streets, enjoying the hot summer sun, shopping, eating ice cream, you know, all the stuff one does on a holiday.  And in this little seaside-resort town, on the sidewalk, was a girl about my age in full high-pull headgear, doing window-shopping with her mum.  They want into the shop and I followed, "spying" a bit.  She did not seem too worried about it, certainly less worried that I would have been, but you could still see there was a bit of "I'd rather not" in her eyes. 

Only later did it hit me like a ton of bricks:  if this girl is here in this resort town, wearing headgear, then the chances that I'd see her again in her headgear was rather good (the resort town is not very big). And if my chances are good... so is my mother's!  I hoped and prayed for the rest of that vacation that my mother, for the love of all things holy, do not see this girl in her headgear, because if she does, that's me screwed for the rest of the holiday! 

But neither I nor my mum saw her again, and I got away with a headgear-free holiday! 

I've seen headgear in real life on a few occasions...

About 10 years ago I saw a woman in her early 20s wearing combination headgear. She just happened to come in to the coffee shop where my girlfriend (now wife) was working on a Sunday morning. I was surprised because you don't see headgear here in the US all that often, especially on adults.

One of the girls in my neighborhood about 25 years ago had cervical headgear along with metal brackets and tongue crib.

Incidentally, I forgot that one of my wife's cousins actually had a reverse pull facemask -- the only one I've ever seen in real life (other than the one my wife wears on occasion for fun!).

yes

Hi,

I am 44 now.
I see my first headgear at school, I was 11, and a girl in my class had one for 6 mouth !
I had myself a headgear at 13yo, but only at home. (and a very few time in public, but not at school)
at 14yo, an other girl in my school have one.
I am in france, but some family in Holland. When I went there, I saw some... but less and less now.
In the last 8 years, I see 2 tourists with one. One in the metro, and one near the effel tower. (I have some pict of that...)

see you

i saw a girl wearing a headgear when i was about 8 to ten. The girl lived in the same town and took the same schoolbus and while driving home from school she wore it sometimes. I think it was quite ebarissing for her

headgear at home was very common in france in the 80's. (I had one, and my sister too, and some of my friend too)
It seems to be less common now, but very difficult to know... no one said it !