White Berets

White berets... Not counting myself, wearing a white boina Tolosa Tupida on a good summer day, white berets are, or have been worn, and associated with some of the most interesting groups of beret wearers.

In my slightly subjective opinion, I'll start with the worst: Carlists (above), the ultra-conservative, ultra-Catholic monarchists from Spain. Best known for their red berets with tassel, they also wore the boina blanca - closely associated of course with the RC Church. 

The Pilgrims of St. Michael were founded in Canada in 1939 by Louis Even (left) and Gilberte Côté-Mercier (right) 

with a slightly different mission from the Carlists: to promote the development of a better world, a more Christian society, through the diffusion and the implementation of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, in every sector of society, especially the economic field.
A very different group were the White Berets of the Argentinean Radical Party 

and, quite different again, the French Chasseurs Alpins (in winter white) and the legionnaires of the French Foreign Legion. 

Then, of course, there are the fashion savvy women who wear the white berets by American Apparel (made by Parkhurst in Canada). 

And these, in turn, are very different again for those of the members of the merchant navy's Arctic Convoys, during WWII.

Still, I have a good number in store (here) and one on special with Moroccan leather headband in size 60 in the One-Off section!