Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Nadine Vega (1959) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer, best known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.

Vega has released nine studio albums to date, the latest of which is Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, released in 2016.

Vega practices Nichiren Buddhism and is a member of the US branch of the worldwide Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.

Bruce Cockburn

Bruce Douglas Cockburn OC (1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist. His song styles range from folk to jazz-influenced rock and his lyrics cover a broad range of topics that reveal a passion for human rights, environmental issues, politics, and spirituality.

Cockburn has written more than 300 songs on thirty albums over a career spanning 40 years. Twenty Cockburn records have received a Canadian gold or platinum certification as of 2013, and he has sold nearly one million albums in Canada alone.

In 2014, Cockburn released his memoirs, Rumours of Glory: A Memoir. No book-length biography of Cockburn has been written, but numerous critics have offered interpretations of Cockburn's songwriting phases, political views, and relationship with Christianity.

Achille Laugé

Achille Laugé was born in Arzens in the Aude region of France, and became a follower of Neo-Impressionism. 

The son of well-to-do farmers who moved to Cailhau near Carcassonne, where he spent most of his life, Laugé began studies in Toulouse in 1878 and went to Paris in 1881. At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he studied with Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Paul Laurens. While at the École, Antoine Bourdelle, whom Laugé had known in Toulouse, introduced him to Aristide Maillol and the three maintained a long and fruitful friendship. In 1888, after seven years in Paris (including a term of military service), Laugé returned to the south and established himself at Carcassonne. Finally, in 1895, he returned to Cailhau where he spent the rest of his life.

DJ Eve Dahan

DJ, producer, performer, Eve Dahan is an artist in her own right.

She takes pleasure in appropriating, assembling, mixing, triturating and digesting sounds to extract the juice and take people to a new territory of varied atmospheres. Her mix of electro is always cleverly dosed with rock and Brazilian influences; Hispanic, Indian and French repertoire leads to the creation of a cosmopolitan multifaceted universe coherent, voluntary and powerful.

Modern pinup? Certainly. Ultra-feminine? Yes. Fitted dresses, berets and high heels ... A look, an attitude, a class!  

Boinas Tolosa Tupida on SPECIAL!

On SPECIAL this week, the berets that stood at the very beginning of South Pacific Berets: the boinas Tolosa Tupida!

The boinas Tolosa Tupida are made of 100% Argentinian grown merino wool; soft to the touch, durable, light and extremely comfortable. What better recommendation than that the gauchos of the Argentinian pampas principally wear these berets?

For one week only, a selection of boinas TT in the standard diameter of 30cm and the generous Plato Grande in 32cm at a discount of 20% (as long as stock lasts)!

Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947), is an English singer, pianist, and composer.

He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world.

In 2010, John was criticised by some Christian groups in the US after describing Jesus as a "compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems". William Anthony Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and opponent of gay marriage, responded: "To call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant. But what else would we expect from a man who previously said, 'From my point of view, I would ban religion completely.'"

Elton John was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on 24 February 1998.

Whales

Berets were the typical headgear of whalers; Basques alike many other nationalities; partly tradition (Basques), mostly convenience.

Times have changed, luckily, and apart from some stubborn Japanese and Scandinavians, hunting these animals is a thing of the past.

It always makes my day when I spot a whale (orca's or dolphins) when driving along Wellington's south coast - always a magnificent sight.

Seems many people share this sentiment, even showing so by wearing 'whale berets'.

Peace Berets

"Peace Berets" come in many forms; typically it being the wearer who is associated with 'peace', being a Buddhist teacher, SCW-Veterans, scientists associated with the peace movement, protesters and activists... 

It often is the beret itself that stands for peace.

 
However, there are many berets that leave no doubt about the wearer's intentions. I even found a website selling solely peace berets and similar articles. 

Jamie the Chimp

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW) is located on 89 acres of farm and forested land in the Cascade mountains, 90 miles east of Seattle. CSNW is one of only a handful of sanctuaries in the country that cares for chimpanzees.

CSNW was founded in 2003 to provide sanctuary for chimpanzees discarded from the entertainment and biomedical testing industries. On June 13, 2008, seven chimpanzees arrived from a private biomedical facility in Pennsylvania. Some of the chimpanzees were kept as pets and used in entertainment when they were young. Some of them were captured in Africa as infants. All of them were used by the biomedical research industry to test hepatitis vaccines. Most of the females were also used as breeders during their years in labs and their babies were taken from them shortly after birth.

Now the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees enjoy a rich social life in an exciting indoor and outdoor environment where they have choices to make every day. Pictured here is Jamie, born in 1977.

Miki / Watch Caps at South Pacific Berets

Not berets, these Miki Hats or Watch Caps, but equally comfortable, well made and good looking.

These miki's are made of 100% cotton, fitted with a flexible headband and with a Velcro strap to ensure comfortable (adjustable) sizing. 

Available in 5 colours @ $28.50.

DJ Chris Sullivan

Chris Sullivan, is, and has been at various times, a DJ, author, nightclub host, pop star, painter, style commentator, entrepreneur and fashion designer. 

Coming to London from Merthyr Tydfil in the mid-70s, he went onto to study art at St Martins than fronted the high-concept Virgin-signed Latin funk band, Blue Rondo A La Turk. He began DJ'ing aged 14 at local youth clubs and after spinning at his self-promoted clubs such as Le Kilt and St.Moritz, he was the founder, host, director and DJ at of the world famous Wag Club in London where the likes of Sade, Prince and Lee Perry played live. 

During the early to mid-eighties he DJ'd every club and party worth talking about in London with gigs in Tokyo, New York, La, Paris ,Barcelona, Milan including the Mint bar ,Danceteria, Plastic and Ibiza’s Ku Klub. In 1987 he opened Afters in Clink St (4am-12 mid-day) where, using one deck and a cassette player, he was one of the first UK DJ's to play pure Chicago House.

In the nineties he DJ'd at parties for amongst many others, Elton John, Jean Paul Gaultier, Comme Des Garcons, Madonna, GQ and Italian Vogue and continued at clubs such as Browns, Pacha, The Limelight and the Cafe de Paris. 

He often plays film premier parties and art openings in the city and each year takes a DJ slot at the Vintage festival while his film script, Anarchy In The UK, is being developed by a Hollywood's Hacienda Films. Most recently he conceived and co-wrote a 9 part TV documentary series Gangs of Britain presented by his old chums Martin and Gary Kemp for the Crime and Investigation Channel.

Vintage Motorcycles

At the jury table in Bilbao, early last century.

From a time when it was totally acceptable to wear a beret while riding a motorbike. 

Triumph LS , 1925

Tornado Smith, Master of the Wall of Death

Triumph type. 4-cycle, 3.5 hp.

BMW 1930's

Zündapp

Zündapp was a major German motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1917 in Nuremberg by Fritz Neumeyer, together with the Friedrich Krupp AG and the machine tool manufacturer Thiel under the name "Zünder- und Apparatebau G.m.b.H." as a producer of detonators.  

In 1919, as the demand for weapons parts declined after World War I, Neumeyer became the sole proprietor of the company, and two years later he diversified into the construction of motorcycles.

Following World War II, Zündapp expanded into the microcar, moped and scooter markets. The company collapsed in 1984. However, not without leaving some interesting pictures of their bikes with berets!

Black Beret Life Sciences

W.E. “Ed” Bosarge is a world-renowned pioneer in the application of advanced mathematics to the fields of finance, medicine, and energy. 

Over the course of a remarkable career that has so far spanned more than six decades, he has developed innovative yet practical solutions to an exceptionally varied array of scientific and financial problems, while at the same time creating a number of successful businesses with global scope and influence.

Ed Bosarge’s initiatives in regenerative medicine are bold. Through Black Beret Life Sciences, which he founded in 2014, he has become a world leader in the search for treatments based on regenerative medicine for cancer, diabetes, neurodegeneration, osteoarthritis, and other conditions related to aging. 

As an advocate for health and wellness, Dr. Bosarge has also been focused on finding a solution to the rapidly rising rates of obesity and diabetes. Through a partnership with Chef Ryan Turner, he developed Sola, a low calorie, zero-carb, and zero-glycemic sugar replacement that tastes, bakes, and measures like the real thing. Sola was introduced to the U.S. market in late 2016.

Taddle Creek

Taddle Creek is a literary magazine based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is published twice yearly and has a mix of various kinds of fiction, nonfiction, and visual art.

Taddle Creek showcases the work of authors and illustrators who live (primarily, but not exclusively) in the Toronto area. This has led to the perception "in some catty literary circles" that Taddle Creek is "Torontocentric". A typical issue of Taddle Creek will feature a mix of fiction, poetry, interviews, comics, essays, and photographs,

The magazine also has an on-line component that features a large archive of previously published material, subscription information, book recommendations, and contributor bios.

Utne Reader has described the magazine as "offbeat". According to Taddle Creek itself, it aims for an "urban" and contemporary attitude that avoids the "snowstorm on the prairie kind of thing" or even the confines of any one literary style, and calls itself "the journal for those who have come to detest everything the literary magazine has become in the twenty-first century." 

Broken Pencil's writers declared Taddle Creek a "gorgeous" magazine and said it had achieved "a track record of consistently publishing an extremely engaging collection of fiction, poetry and illustration."

Thanks, Paul

The Amsterdam Pipe Museum

The Amsterdam Pipe Museum is part of the Pijpenkabinet Foundation and as a collection unique in the Netherlands and Europe. As a specialized museum the museum exhibits the world wide culture of pipe smoking and the use of tobacco. The presentation gives a profound idea of smoking in five continents from the earliest times (500 B.C.) till present days.

The categories of the collections of the Amsterdam Pipe Museum vary from archaeological to historic and from folk art to ethnographic.

Interestingly, many of the old clay pipes portray boineros; be it Richard Wagner, general Montgomery, Béarnaise folk character Cadetou or simply a sailor wearing a black beret.