Berets, Anyone?

[Matt Crunk]

I guess berets have always been popular with the art & music set. Being both artist and musician (I've made my living at both) I guess I'm no exception. Here's a shot of me from a CD cover session taken about 15 years ago.

 

[alsendk]

Exellent style Matt
fine head gear, and a fine Telecaster

 

[Matt Crunk]

Exellent style Matt
fine head gear, and a fine Telecaster

Thanks for the compliments.

 

[Bird Lives]

I guess berets have always been popular with the art & music set. Being both artist and musician (I've made my living at both) I guess I'm no exception. Here's a shot of me from a CD cover session taken about 15 years ago.

Great album shot...It works...I know I want to hear it...I've been trying to get this pic to play all morn,...but to no avail...

 

[Daan]

Where I grew up, 40 years ago in the Netherlands, Japanese goods were not considered compatible with anything European or American made. The cars in our neighbourhood were Volkswagens, Citroens and Fiats; motorbikes were 2-stroke East European bikes for the not so wealthy - BMW's for the better-off.
I remember the first convert to a Mazda in our street, late 1960's, and that was not seen as a positive move by the neighbours. Now we know better, of course. And even though I stubbornly continue driving a French car, I know that the Japanese equivalent is better, longer lasting and more reliable. And like so many things that the Japanese put their hands on, so it is with Basque berets (a popular headgear in Japan).

It has taken me a while, but finally managed to become Kongo-Shokai Ltd's retailer outside Japan. And yes, that is something to be jubilant about! Kongo-Shokai is an old (founded 1928) hat manufacturer who produced Basque berets for decades for the local -Japanese- market. Basque berets are a popular headgear in Japan; interestingly both with the elderly and with youth! Two positive role-models were Ryuichi Yokoyama and Dr. Osamu Tezuka.

The DEER berets are extremely well made with great eye for detail. I have to confess that I have not seen many European or South American berets with a lining as nice as these Deer berets. Fitted with a very comfortable, stretchy headband and showing perfect craftsmanship overall. Extremely well made berets, not sold anywhere else outside Japan!

So far for the wool Basques. Kongo-Shokai also makes berets in linen. Being reluctant at first, I ordered only a small number, only to find that I'm instantly in love with these light, breathable summer berets in a 65/35% linen/cotton blend). This Wellington Christmas Eve with a unusual high of 27oC proves my point (and one has been taken of the shelf for myself!). Time to place another extended order straight away...

 

[Moca]

Where I grew up, 40 years ago in the Netherlands, Japanese goods were not considered compatible with anything European or American made. The cars in our neighbourhood were Volkswagens, Citroens and Fiats; motorbikes were 2-stroke East European bikes for the not so wealthy - BMW's for the better-off.
I remember the first convert to a Mazda in our street, late 1960's, and that was not seen as a positive move by the neighbours. Now we know better, of course. And even though I stubbornly continue driving a French car, I know that the Japanese equivalent is better, longer lasting and more reliable. And like so many things that the Japanese put their hands on, so it is with Basque berets (a popular headgear in Japan).

It has taken me a while, but finally managed to become Kongo-Shokai Ltd's retailer outside Japan. And yes, that is something to be jubilant about! Kongo-Shokai is an old (founded 1928) hat manufacturer who produced Basque berets for decades for the local -Japanese- market. Basque berets are a popular headgear in Japan; interestingly both with the elderly and with youth! Two positive role-models were Ryuichi Yokoyama and Dr. Osamu Tezuka.

The DEER berets are extremely well made with great eye for detail. I have to confess that I have not seen many European or South American berets with a lining as nice as these Deer berets. Fitted with a very comfortable, stretchy headband and showing perfect craftsmanship overall. Extremely well made berets, not sold anywhere else outside Japan!

So far for the wool Basques. Kongo-Shokai also makes berets in linen. Being reluctant at first, I ordered only a small number, only to find that I'm instantly in love with these light, breathable summer berets in a 65/35% linen/cotton blend). This Wellington Christmas Eve with a unusual high of 27oC proves my point (and one has been taken of the shelf for myself!). Time to place another extended order straight away...

good one, Dan. take a navy and a linen of the shelf for me! shal put the order in shortly! merry christmas and all that!

 

[howardeye]

My new Elosegui Basque 10.5" Beret From Ron Greer.

 

[Daan]

"Boina"

Visitors of The Beret Project may remember me posting a beautiful short film on the town Tomelloso (Spain) by Jose Luis Garcia Sanchez, shot in 1970. A film literally full of berets, or boinas. Have a look here.
Now, there is a beautiful animated short video named "Boina", with the voice of Juan Pajares Marbella and music by Dr. Larusso - recognizably based on the original (you need to see both really, to appreciate it fully).

[video=vimeo;34901653]http://vimeo.com/34901653[/video]

Thought this would make a nice 2013 entry for me on The Fedora Lounge. Enjoy!

 

[J.B.]

Hey! Welcome back.

How were the Holidays?
This thread has been kinda :sleep: ...

 

[howardeye]

Daan,
I came across your site and found many berets that I am interested in. Very fine berets!

 

[Daan]

Hey! Welcome back.

How were the Holidays?
This thread has been kinda :sleep: ...

Yes, lovely holidays - thanks very much! 3300 km's around NZ's South Island; deserted beaches, rain-forest, sea-lion and penguin watching, beautiful Central Otago, snow-capped mountains, etc., etc.
And the principal beret for these 3 weeks was the Elósegui 150 Años Edición Limitada; worn at night in 3oC and in the full 34oC heat. Honestly, can't get over the superior qualities of this beret.

Meanwhile, new developments at South Pacific Berets / The Beret Project. Just before the holidays, I received the first lot of Japanese DEER berets. Initially, I was a little hesitant to add these to the stock, but after so many recommendations from both Japanese customers and foreigners who had bought this beret in Japan, I thought I'd give it a go. And yes, they are fantastic berets of exceptional quality! More models (linen!) have just arrived in Auckland, the courier web site tells me, and NZ Customs depending, should come available later this week.

Much bigger news from France, where Laulhere (previously Beatex) has just started a hugh promotional campagne to revive the Basque beret. Classic models, alongside a whole new range of beautiful berets inspired by the 1930's multi-coloured silk linings. The aim is to add these berets to the stock of South Pacific Berets! I hope to publish more information these berets soon.

 

[Cattus Petasatus]

A friend of mine bought me a beret for Christmas. I'm not normally a beret man but it was a gift so I felt compelled to wear it.

He told me it was a Polish army beret. Plain, black, 2 piece [huh]

After wearing it a while, I'm kinda digging it.

I don't look as cool as Mr. Stubbs, yet.

 

[howardeye]

Very nice beret! You look great in it!

 

[Daan]

A friend of mine bought me a beret for Christmas. I'm not normally a beret man but it was a gift so I felt compelled to wear it.

He told me it was a Polish army beret. Plain, black, 2 piece [huh]

After wearing it a while, I'm kinda digging it.

Hi Cattus Petasatus,
Sterkowski is a Polish hat manufacturer with a history that goes back to 1926, the year that Anna Sterkowski began trading on Warsaw's Kazimierz Square, to support her family after her husband died in a car crash.
Zygmund Sterkowski helped set up the hat manufacturing business and, after interruptions because of the war, the company grew to 50 employees by 1948, manufacturing hats, shirts and overcoats.

Over time, the focus became more and more on hats, with Zygmund an active participant in the 'Technical Progress Club', Examination Committees and giving lectures to artisans all over the country.

He has introduced various new techniques, along with his sons Markiem (M.Sc. chemist) and Jerzym (MSc electronics engineer) for hats made of woven cloth instead of felt.
In 1979, Mark Sterkowski opened in his own company under the name: Laboratory of caps and hats, Markiem Sterkowski. It is this company that manufactures the pictured beret; a nice enough quality hat, but really, not a military, or Basque, beret (despite the pretty label stating so). The 'beret' is made of two pieces of woven wool sewn together and has a txortena sewn on top (!); a "real" Basque beret is knitted out of one thread, closed with the same thread and the txortena (or 'wick' on the top) left in place - the remains of the closing thread. This whole affair is then felted, shrunk, brushed among other procedures.

But, I do like Sterkowski's label...

 

[Daan]

Ads

Over the years, a few ads for berets made it onto The Fedora Lounge. Too few, really - many of these vintage ads are quite beautiful in their own way.

This 1915 ad for Boinas Elosegui for example.

Or these, also for Elosegui - date unknown. La Casualidad was the name of the actual factory.

KANGOL, still British then, invested much in advertising. There are dozens of similar style ads going around.

This ad was published on 26 May, 1943, halfway into WWII. The Argentinean fashion store Harrods offered a black beret in Montgomery style to it's female clientele.
The vegetarian (and sworn enemy of snuff and alcohol) Marshal Bernhard Law Montgomery became of bit of an idol after his successful campaign against "desert fox" Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at the sand of El Alamein and Harrods had a good nose for what would do well with the women of Buenos Aires.

Ad for Nor-Coc berets from Hungary; once a famous brand of Basque berets that exported all over Europe and to the US.

I quite like these two, both from The New-Yorker.

And a typical French ad, from Blanq-Olibet.

 

[Daan]

A great source of beret-related photographs is the Spanish Civil War, where both sides were proud to wear the beret for -very different- reasons. On the right (Fascist/Nationalist) side there was the self proclaimed generalissimo himself, Francesco Franco, the members of the Falange and the ultra-catholic Requetés (or Carlists) with their distinctive red berets with tassel.

On the other side -"the left"-, were the troops of the legitimate Spanish Republican Government, the various militias of communists, socialists, anarchists and the many volunteers who joined the International Brigades.

Pilot for the Republic, Frenchman André Malraux con boina

Within the International Brigades, there was the Abraham Lincoln Battalion (offer referred to as 'brigade'). The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who fought for Spanish Republican forces against Franco and the Spanish Nationalists.
As time went on, the name Abraham Lincoln Brigade became used loosely, in the United States, as shorthand to describe any unit with an American component. Volunteers from the United States also served with the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, the Regiment de Tren (transport), and the John Brown Anti-Aircraft Battery. North Americans also ran a very well-organized and well-equipped field hospital (funded and staffed by the American Medical Bureau to Save Spanish Democracy).

And, often side by side, there were the journalists and filmmakers, like Ernest Hemingway and Joris Ivens.

These days the memory of the American volunteers and what they stood for is kept alive by ALBA, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. And yes, South Pacific Berets is proud to support ALBA and it's work. This is the new ad for The Volunteer, with Abe Lincoln himself in the background in the shape of Dali's famous painting "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln" (the name is Dali's work, not mine).

 

[Daan]

Interesting article from a Welsh paper and, in some ways, quite typical for beret wearers...

He died in prison while protesting for his right not to wear a motorcycle helmet. Now 40 years after it became compulsory to wear a helmet while heading out on two wheels, bikers are taking part in a road trip to pay tribute to a man whose name is a symbol of “exceptional sacrifice in the name of bikers’ freedoms”.

Fred Hill in his trademark beret

Fred was a retired maths teacher who had served in World War Two as an army dispatch rider. When it became illegal to ride without an approved helmet in 1973 he decided this was a part of the freedom he had fought for and which he was not going to give up. When fined for wearing a beret to ride, he refused to pay and tore up hundreds of subsequent fines. He also served 31 prison sentences and died in Pentonville aged 74, halfway through a 60-day sentence for contempt of court.

Some of the prison sentences were very short, as little as 24 hours on one occasion, when he was held in an unlocked police station cell and told by the desk sergeant to “bugger off when no-one’s looking”. During one prison stay he wrote: “What is a man deprived of his name, his freedom of movement taken away, his every privacy invaded, every move spied upon, locked away in a filthy cell for 23 hours out of the 24 hours - and half of these miserable hours spent in darkness?”
Fred’s face was a familiar sight at Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) demonstrations all over Wales where he would give speeches dressed in an arrow patterned prison suit.
Members of the South Wales MAG, of which Fred was a well-known member, will ride in convoy from Cardiff, through Bridgend, Swansea, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion today before arriving in Llandovery where a wreath will be laid at the statue of Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, another iconic figure who fought for freedom.
South Wales MAG member Philip Neale said: “Many people will recall the extraordinary example set by Fred in defying the compulsory helmet law throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties.

“Nowhere in the world has anyone made such exceptional sacrifices in the name of bikers’ freedoms. “Motorcycling is about freedom. Fred understood that. We must never forget Fred’s example lest we forget why we ride motorcycles.
“Though in every other way a law-abiding citizen, Fred would encourage the crowds he addressed to follow his example, as the law would have to be repealed if enough people simply ignored it.
“Once in the dock of a magistrates court where a lady magistrate berated his lawlessness, Fred took the opportunity to remind her that if it hadn’t been for members of her sex breaking the law some years ago, she wouldn’t be sitting where she was.”
Demonstrations of support by MAG members were frequently staged outside prisons in which Fred was held and a commemoration of his efforts is made annually at the gates of Pentonville on the anniversary of his death.

He was 74 when he died from a heart attack suffered whilst in custody in Pentonville in 1984. During his final incarceration the prison governor had warned that the harsh prison environment could be the death of him, to which Fred replied: “It doesn’t matter where a man dies but how.”
Philip said: “Whether the helmet issue is important to you or not, we all owe it, not only to Fred but to ourselves, to sustain a ceaseless call for the reform of this outrageous legislation for, as Fred wrote, ‘What is a man deprived of his freedom?’”

 

[Godfrey]

Like the beret and the commitment - but having come off a motorbike due to a u-turn driver who saw indicators and head checks as against her civil liberties I was glad for my helmet, leathers, boots and my beloved nanny state - which also prosecuted the driver and then funded my rehab.

 

[Daan]

Like the beret and the commitment - but having come off a motorbike due to a u-turn driver who saw indicators and head checks as against her civil liberties I was glad for my helmet, leathers, boots and my beloved nanny state - which also prosecuted the driver and then funded my rehab.

Couldn't agree more, despite admiration for his commitment. I tend to look like the 'Michelin Man' when on my bike, quite different from most others in shorts and T-shirts right now...

Still, if there were no bikers wearing berets, what would I post here?

Man pushing his 'petrol bike', with trailer, on a dirt road near Paris in 1940

"Tornado Smith", the Wall of Death motorbike rider from Southend, and his wife having tea with their pet lion and lamb

The village priest, on his Solex

Willie G, grandson of William A. Davidson, one of the founders of Harley Davidson

Biker Nick C. Colyer

The beret is standard headgear for the Italian, British and French mechanics working on racer bikes (no peak that gets in the way, black wool that doesn't show oil stains)

Motorcycle journalist Clement Salvadori

 

[1280almas]

I became a boina/beret aficionado after watching "Hana-Bi" 15 years ago (It's a brown Deer beret).