A beret is a soft,
round, flat-crowned hat, usually of woven, hand-knitted wool,
crocheted cotton, wool felt, or acrylic fibre.
Mass production
began in 19th century France and Spain, countries with which it
remains associated. Berets are worn as part of the uniform of many
military and police units worldwide, as well as by other
organisations.
Archaeology and art
history indicate that headgear similar to the modern beret has been
worn since the Bronze Age across Northern Europe and as far south as
ancient Crete and Italy, where it was worn by the Minoans, Etruscans
and Romans. Such headgear has been popular among the nobility and
artists across Europe throughout modern history.
The Basque style
beret was the traditional headgear of Aragonese and Navarrian
shepherds from the Ansó and Roncal 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 in the Oloron-Sainte-Marie area 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 working classes 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.
Military berets 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.[6] The black RTR beret was made famous by Field Marshal
Montgomery in the Second World War.
The beret fits
snugly around the head, and can be "shaped" in a variety of
ways – in the Americas it is commonly worn pushed to one side. In
Central and South America, local custom usually prescribes the manner
of wearing the beret; there is no universal rule and older gentlemen
usually wear it squared on the head, jutting forward. It can be worn
by both men and women.
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 hat. 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
Belgian 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.
Basque
Country
Berets came to be
popularised across Europe and other parts of the world as typical
Basque headgear, as reflected in their name in several languages
(e.g. béret basque in French; Baskenmütze in German; Basco in
Italian; or baskeri in Finnish), while the Basques themselves use the
words txapela or boneta. They are very popular and common in the
Basque Country. The colours adopted for folk costumes varied by
region and purpose: black and blue are worn more frequently than red
and white, which are usually used at local festivities. The people of
Aragon adopted red berets while the black beret became the common
headgear of workers in France and Spain.
A big commemorative
black beret is the usual trophy in sport or bertso 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.
France
The black beret was
once considered the national cap of France in Anglo-Saxon countries
and is part of the stereotypical image of the Onion Johnny. It is no
longer as widely worn as it once was, but it remains a strong sign of
local identity in the southwest of France. When French people want to
picture themselves as "the typical average Frenchman" in
France or in a foreign country, they often use this stereotype from
Anglo-Saxon countries. There are today, three manufacturers in
France. Laulhère (who acquired the formerly oldest manufacturer,
Blancq-Olibet, in February 2014 has been making bérets since 1840.
Boneteria Auloronesa is a small artisan French beret manufacturer in
the Béarnaise town of Oloron Sainte Marie, and Le Béret Français
is another artisan béret maker in the Béarnaise village of Laàs.
The beret still remains a strong symbol of the unique identity of
southwestern France and is worn while celebrating traditional events.
Spain
In Spain, depending
upon the region, the beret is usually known as the boina. They were
once common men's headwear across the cooler north of the country, in
regions of Aragon, Navarre, the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias
and Galicia and nearby areas.
Scotland
There are several
Scottish variants of the beret, notably the Scottish bonnet or
Bluebonnet (originally bonaid in Gaelic), whose ribbon cockade and
feathers identify the wearer’s clan and rank. It's considered a
symbol of Scottish patriotism. Other Scottish types include the
tam-o'-shanter (named by Robert Burns after a character in one of his
poems) and the striped Kilmarnock cap, both of which feature a large
pompom in the centre.
As
uniform headgear
The beret's
practicality has long made it an item of military and other uniform
clothing. 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. In World
War Two, British officer Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") took
to wearing a black beret given to him by a corporal, and it became
his trademark. 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 specialised forces in the Army, U.S. Air Force and
other services also adopted berets as distinctive headgear.
Police and
Paramilitary forces of some countries also wear the Beret as their
uniform headgear.
In
fashion and culture
The beret is part of
the long-standing stereotype of the intellectual, film director,
artist, "hipster", poet, bohemain and beatnik. The painter
Rembrandt and the composer Richard Wagner, among others, wore berets.
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
In the 1960s several
activist groups adopted the black beret. These include the
Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the ETA guerrillas (who
wore black berets over hoods in public appearances), the Black
Panther Party of the United States, formed in 1966, 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).
No comments:
Post a Comment