The Beret Project: 2020

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Monday, December 28, 2020

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Friday, December 25, 2020

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Yes, that time of year again, when most of my blog-readers and customers cover themselves up in wool, shovel snow and have the woodfires roaring, here in the Southern Hemisphere it's time for the beach!

Over the X-mas / New Year's holidays I take a break from posting here, apart from a daily interesting, stunning, cute, remarkable, vintage, sexy, or otherwise beret-related photo.

I wish all of you very happy holidays and a great start for the New Year. In many ways, it can only get better!

And yes, keep wearing your beret!

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Gitanjali Rao

In the age of the selfie, Mumbai-based animator and artist Gitanjali Rao has come up with the ‘wishfie,’ a set of manipulated photographs that shows her with icons of the past.

A wishfie is a wish-fulfilling selfie, she explains. With the help of her Sony Experia, her first smart phone, the 43-year-old artist has been clicking herself with some legendary images. So, there she is with Ché Guevera (and Fidel Castro), cigar firmly in place, while another has her striking a pose with Guru Dutt! She has even framed herself in famous paintings such as Vermeer’s ‘Girl with the pearl earring’ and shares a kiss in Klimt’s ‘Kiss’.

Monday, December 21, 2020

The French Goat

The French Goat is a casual French style bistro located in the heart of historic Lewisburg, VA.

The restaurant offers a menu of classic French dishes with a twist, an eclectic and quality wine list, and handcrafted cocktails, all presented with the most gracious and knowledgeable service.

The logo was found through a design contest; needless to say all participants chose the beret as the identifying factor of the goat's Frenchness.

Babs Gonzales

Babs Gonzales (1919 –1980), born Lee Brown, was an American bebop vocalist, poet, and self-published author.

His books portrayed the jazz world that many black musicians struggled in, portraying disk jockeys, club owners, liquor, drugs, and racism. "There are jazz people whose influence can be described as minor," wrote Val Wilmer, "yet who are well-known to musicians and listeners alike ... You'd have to be hard-pressed to ignore the wealth of legend that surrounds Babs Gonzales."

Jazz writer Jack Cooke explained that Gonzales "assumed the role of spokesman for the whole hipster world... [becoming] something more than just a good and original jazz entertainer: the incarnation of a whole social group."

From 1958, Gonzales operated a nightclub called Babs' Insane Asylum, located in Sugar Hill, New York at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Place. The house band included Hank Jones, Roy Haynes, and Milt Hinton. "These guys could have made some crazy money in the studios or with another orchestra, but they preferred to work at home for $100 a week," said Gonzales, "simply because it was a great place where all the jazzmen came."

Babs Gonzales & Benny Goodman.

From 1951 Gonzales began to travel regularly to Europe and remained there for months at a time. Though he makes no mention in his autobiographies, it appears that Gonzales was married for some time. A 1953 issue of Jet published a photograph of Gonzales posing beneath the Eiffel Tower with his "Swedish wife, champion swimmer and model" Sonja Juhlin, however he later stated that he was not married, explaining that "I love freedom too much... there are too many girls on earth to choose just one."

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Giovanni Segantini

Giovanni Segantini (1858 –1899) was an Italian painter known for his large pastoral landscapes of the Alps. He was one of the most famous artists in Europe in the late 19th century, and his paintings were collected by major museums.

Although I found no evidence of Segantini wearing a beret himself, his sons wear some magnificent models on this family picture.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Emily Ratajkowski

American model and actress Emily Ratajkowski has called out French magazine Madame Figaro for reducing her lips and breasts in a photograph for an interview that deals with the discrimination she says she has faced for "being too sexy".

"I was extremely disappointed to see my lips and breasts altered in Photoshop on this cover," the 26-year-old star told her near 15 million followers on Instagram.

"Everyone is uniquely beautiful in their own ways. We all have insecurities about the things that make us different from a typical ideal of beauty," she added.

"I hope the fashion industry will finally learn to stop trying to stifle the things that make us unique and instead begin to celebrate individuality."

The magazine's Saturday interview with the model, who rose to fame with Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines music video, concentrated on how directors had discriminated against her because of her smouldering looks.

Madame Figaro's cover image of Ratajkowski wearing a black leather beret and an open coat appeared to have been altered to thin her lips, and lift and reduce her breasts.

She posted the original photo on Instagram to show the differences, and her post was "liked" nearly half a million times by users.

The row comes within days of a new French law coming into force which will oblige advertising agencies and media companies to indicate if an image has been retouched.