Monday, October 1, 2012

Made in China

Like it or not, most berets these days are made in China. Not the berets sold through South Pacific Berets, these are all made by traditional artisan manufacturers, but the many millions each year that are produced for the armies of the world.
I tried finding statistics about how many military personnel there are, on the planet, but failed - trust me, there are many too many and all of them get a new beret every 2 years or so... That makes for a huge industry. 
As a sideline, many of these factories also produce some Basque berets; easy, as a military beret is literally an amputated Basque beret (you can feel the point where the txortena (the "wick") had once been. 
On one of my internet searches, I came across the Majuyuan time-honored brand and found it too good to not post it here:
"As a China’s Time Honored Brand, Majuyuan was first set up in 1811 during Emperor Jiaqing’s reign of Qing Dynasty; it specialized in making hats for the royal family and officials. Because of the hats were beautifully made, with high quality and skillfully crafted, Majuyuan Hat Shop was praised the Head of Hat Industry in Beijing, and its hats have great fame and popularity among locals and visitors."
At $ 46.88 it is definitely not the cheap Chinese pricing. 

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