Product Code Database
A beret ( , ; ; ; ) is a soft, round, flat-crowned cap made of hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, wool felt, or acrylic fibre.
Mass production of berets began in the 19th century specifically in the Basque Country, where they were already common headwear among the Basque people, before spreading to Southern France and the Cantabrian Coast; as such, the beret remains associated with these countries. Berets are worn as part of the uniform of many military and police units worldwide, as well as by other organizations.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards. A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern. R. M. McBride Company, 1958.
The 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt was well known for wearing a baret and may have inspired the baret's association with artists.
The Basque-style beret was the traditional headwear of and Navarre shepherds from the Ansó and Roncal Valley valleys of the Pyrenees, a mountain range that divides southern France from northern Spain. The commercial production of Basque-style berets began in the 17th century around Oloron-Sainte-Marie in the Béarn province of southern France. Originally a local craft, beret-making became industrialised in the 19th century. The first factory, Beatex-Laulhere, claims production records dating back to 1810. By the 1920s, berets were associated with the in a part of France and Spain and by 1928 more than 20 French factories and some Spanish and Italian factories produced millions of berets.
In Western fashion, men and women have worn the beret since the 1920s as sportswear and later as a fashion statement.
were first adopted by the French Chasseurs Alpins in 1889. After seeing these during the First World War, British General Hugh Elles proposed the beret for use by the newly formed Royal Tank Regiment, which needed headgear that would stay on while climbing in and out of the small hatches of tanks. They were approved for use by King George V in 1924.Forty, George. A Pictorial History of the Royal Tank Regiment, Halsgrove Publishing 1988, Another possible origin of the RTR beret is that it was suggested to Alec Gatehouse by Eric Dorman-Smith. While the two officers were serving at Sandhurst in 1924, Gatehouse, who had transferred to the Royal Tank Corps, had been given the task of designing a practical headgear for the new corps. Dorman-Smith had toured Spain, including the Basque region, with his friend Ernest Hemingway during the past few years, and had acquired a black Basque beret during his travels.
The black RTR beret was made famous by Field Marshal Montgomery in the Second World War.
Military uniform berets feature a headband or sweatband attached to the wool, made either from leather, silk or cotton ribbon, sometimes with a drawstring allowing the wearer to tighten the cap. The drawstrings are, according to custom, either tied and cut off or tucked in or else left to dangle. The beret is often adorned with a cap badge, either in cloth or metal. Some berets have a piece of buckram or other stiffener in the position where the badge is intended to be worn.
Berets are not usually lined, but many are partially lined with silk or satin. In military berets, the headband is worn on the outside; military berets often have external sweatbands of leather, pleather or ribbon. The traditional beret (also worn by selected military units, such as the Belgium Chasseurs Ardennais or the French Chasseurs Alpins), usually has the "sweatband" folded inwardly. In such a case, these berets have only an additional inch or so of the same woollen material designed to be folded inwardly.
Newer beret styles made of Polar fleece are also popular.
A big commemorative black beret is the usual trophy in sport or Bertsolaritza competitions, including Basque rural sports, the Basque portions of the Tour de France, and the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco. It may bear sewn ornamental references to the achievement or contest.
In the 20th century, the beret became part of a common stereotype of rural people, often with negative connotations of boorishness and uncouthness, found in expressions such as " paleto de boina a rosca" ("a hick wearing a screwed-on beret"), which has greatly reduced the popularity of the beret in Spain. elnaviocastellano.blogspot.com diariojaen.es cervantesvirtual.com
Among a few well-known historic examples are the Scottish soldiers, who wore the blue bonnet in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Volontaires Cantabres, a French force raised in the Basque country in the 1740s to the 1760s, who also wore a blue beret, and the Carlist rebels, with their red berets, in 1830s Spain.
The French Chasseurs alpins, a corps of mountain troops created in 1888, were the first permanently established military force to wear the military beret as a standard headgear. As retained until the present day the chasseur beret is a large and somewhat floppy headdress. The Commandos de Chasse worn an unusual bi-colored beret.
In the 20th century, royal approval was given for the Royal Tank Corps to adopt the black beret in 1924, with the 11th Hussars adopting a brown beret in 1928. In World War II, the Royal Dragoons adopted the grey beret at the end of 1939, with other mechanised units of the British Army, such as the Royal Armoured Corps and the Guards Armoured Division, adopting the black beret in 1941. British officer Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") took to wearing a black beret given to him by the driver of his command vehicle in 1942, and it became his trademark.
The maroon beret (not to be confused with the red beret), was officially introduced in July 1942 at the direction of Major-General Frederick Browning, commander of the British 1st Airborne Division, and soon became an international symbol of airborne forces. In the 1950s the U.S. Army's newly conceived Special Forces units began to wear a green beret as headgear, following the custom of the British Royal Marines, which was officially adopted in 1961 with such units becoming known as the "Green Berets", and additional specialized forces in the Army, U.S. Air Force and other services also adopted berets as distinctive headgear.
In the 1960s several activist groups adopted the black beret. These include the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the ETA (who wore black berets over hoods in public appearances), the Black Panther Party of the United States, formed in 1966,Ogbar, Jeffrey Ogbanna Green. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity, p. 119. 2004 JHU Press and the "Black Beret Cadre" (a similar Black Power organisation in Bermuda). In addition, the Brown Berets were a Chicano organisation formed in 1967.
The Young Lords Party, a Latino revolutionary organisation in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, also wore berets, as did the Guardian Angels unarmed anti-crime citizen patrol units originated by Curtis Sliwa in New York City in the 1970s to patrol the streets and subways to discourage crime (red berets and matching shirts).
In fashion and culture
The beret is part of the long-standing stereotype of the intellectual, film director, artist, "hipster", poet, bohemian style and beatnik. The painter Rembrandt and the composer Richard Wagner, among others, wore berets.Bruyn, J., van de Wetering, Ernst & Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings IV: Self-Portraits Springer, 18 Oct 2005, p. 290. In the United States and Britain, the middle of the 20th century saw an explosion of berets in women's fashion. In the latter part of the 20th century, the beret was adopted by the Chinese both as a fashion statement and for its political undertones. Berets were also worn by bebop and jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Wardell Gray and Thelonious Monk.
As a revolutionary symbol
Guerrillero Heroico, an iconic photograph of the Argentina revolutionary Che Guevara, shows him wearing a black beret with a brass star.
Rastafarians
Adherents of the Rastafari movement often wear a very large knitted or crocheted black beret with red, gold and green circles atop their dreadlocks. The style is often erroneously called a kufi, after the skullcap known as kufune. They consider the beret and dreadlocks to be symbols of the biblical covenant of God with his chosen people, the "black Israelites". This style of hat is also known as a Rastacap.
See also
Notes
External links
|
|
