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.

You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)

"You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)" is a song by Jamaican recording artist Dawn Penn from her debut studio album, No, No, No (1994). The song's lyrics are credited to Penn, Bo Diddley and Willie Cobbs, and production was handled by Steely and Clevie. 

Penn recorded a song in 1967 called "You Don't Love Me", which incorporates elements of the music and lyrics of Cobbs' 1960 song "You Don't Love Me". The Cobbs song was, in turn, based on Diddley's 1955 song "She's Fine, She's Mine". Thus, both are credited as songwriters on Penn's recording. In 1994, after a 17-year break from the music industry, she re-recorded a dancehall version of the song retitled "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)".

Penn's 1994 version of the song became a commercial success worldwide. In the United Kingdom, it peaked at number three on the UK Singles Chart. The song also reached the top 20 in Austria and Switzerland, and the top 40 in the Netherlands and New Zealand. In the United States, the single also charted at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at number 42 on the Hot R&B Singles chart. 

Multiple recording artists have performed cover versions and sampled "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)" in their own works. Barbadian singer Rihanna remade the song for her debut studio album, Music of the Sun (2005), and American entertainer Beyoncé performed the song on her I Am... World Tour concert tour (2009–10).

The Shanghai Beret Project

To my enormous surprise, I found out that there is more than one "The Beret Project". Apart from what you are reading right now, there is also The Shanghai Beret Project!

Frank Quan, an English-speaking Shanghai gentleman who has written two books on old Shanghai. Not surprising, for as the son of poet Zau Sinmay (Shao Xunmei 邵洵美, 1906-1968), he knows something about that period.

Copied from Historic Shanghai: "It’s a classic Shanghai sight: older Chinese men sporting rakish berets. The iconic headwear of the French never seems to have gone out of style among gentlemen of a certain age in Shanghai, a legacy formed during the period of the French Concession (1849-1945). Some hypothesize that since famous revolutionaries like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara also favored these practical chapeaux, Chinese men may have felt comfortable wearing them post-1949. Patrick Cranley’s been on the streets of Frenchtown and beyond, documenting the laokele (distinguished Shanghai gentlemen) and their berets."

Mr Zhang has always worn a beret in the winter. "It’s just what us old guys do!"

Mr Zhou, 93, is rocking his raspberry beret from his wheelchair!

Mr. Qu, 67. He’s been wearing a beret since he was five, “because I was born in the French Concession and live here still!” He’s been taking photos of historic buildings for more than 20 years and is a big fan of architects Laszlo Hudec and Alexandre Leonard.

Mr. Shen, 75, started wearing a beret about 15 years ago. “I’m an artist, so I thought it was appropriate to wear a beret.”

Mr. Tang, 68. He started wearing a beret about 10 years ago. “Because senior citizens need to keep their heads warm.”

Mr. Xu, 88. He started wearing berets in his 70s, “because they look good and are very practical.” 

Mr. Zhu, 65. He started wearing a beret two years ago, when his wife knitted him this nice grey model. Sharp!

André Derain

André Derain (1880 –1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.

Self portrait

Derain and Matisse worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean village of Collioure and later that year displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. The vivid, unnatural colors led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to derisively dub their works as les Fauves, or "the wild beasts", marking the start of the Fauvist movement.

André Derain, 1952

During the German occupation of France in World War II, Derain lived primarily in Paris and was much courted by the Germans because he represented the prestige of French culture. Derain accepted an invitation to make an official visit to Germany in 1941 and travelled with other French artists to Berlin to attend a Nazi exhibition of an officially endorsed artist, Arno Breker. 

Boby au béret

Derain's presence in Germany was used effectively by Nazi propaganda, and after the Liberation he was branded a collaborator and ostracized by many former supporters.

Labour Day - Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan (1897 – 1960), often known as Nye Bevan, was a Welsh Labour Party politician who was the Minister for Health in the post-war Attlee ministry from 1945-51 (and makes a good subject for this 1 May/Labour Day post). The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice, the rights of working people and democratic socialism. He was a long-time Member of Parliament (MP), representing Ebbw Vale in South Wales for 31 years. He was one of the chief spokesmen for the Labour Party's left-wing, and of left-wing British thought generally. 

His most famous accomplishment came when, as Minister of Health, he spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, which was to provide medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons; regardless of wealth. He resigned when the Attlee government decided to transfer funds from the National Insurance Fund to pay for rearmament.

Aneurin Bevan, wearing a beret, seen off by Yakov A. Malik, Soviet Ambassador in London, at London Airport, as they left for Moscow. They hoped to put to Nikita Khrushchev the Labour Party’s nuclear disarmament plan.