Karen Henriksen

Karen Henriksen brings a milliner’s aesthetic and craftsmanship to everyday headwear, striking a carefully considered balance between elegance, innovation and practicality.

Karen designs and makes her men’s, women’s and couture collections entirely in her London studio at Cockpit Bloomsbury, where she established the brand in 2005.

Karen’s take on the beret is the ‘Assa’, a distinctive beret shaped cap in an asymmetric style.

The “berets” come in 2 options: pure wool and organic cotton and are all made to order.

AWMS

 

Anthony (Tony) W. Madsen Sylvester is the man behind fashion brand AWMS.

A man of many talents, he grew up in the punk and hardcore scene, but made his name in the design and fashion industry.

He started small, offering English handmade slippers, with a price point that puts them in the same ballpark as Stubbs & Wooten or Del Toro, but stylistically different.

 But, his trademark product is the beret!

The Truffle Hunters

The Truffle Hunters is a 2020 documentary film directed and produced by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw. It follows a group of aging men hunting in the woods, for a prized quarry, the Alba truffle.

Deep in the forests of Northern Italy resides the prized white Alba truffle. Desired by the wealthiest patrons in the world, it remains a pungent but rarified mystery. It cannot be cultivated or found, even by the most resourceful of modern excavators. The only souls on Earth who know how to dig it up are a tiny circle of canines and their silver-haired human companions-Italian elders with walking sticks and devilish senses of humor-who only scour for the truffle at night so as not to leave any clues for others. Still, this small enclave of hunters induces a feverish buying market that spans the globe.

With unprecedented access to the elusive truffle hunters, filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (The Last Race, 2018 Sundance Film Festival) follow this maddening cycle from the forest floor to the pristine restaurant plate. With a wily and absurdist flare, The Truffle Hunters captures a precarious ritual constantly threatened by greed and outside influences but still somehow protected by those clever, tight-lipped few who know how to unearth the magic within nature.

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 97% based on 121 critics, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "The Truffle Hunters explores a world most viewers will know nothing about – with delightfully savory results.

George "Buck" Flower

George Albert "Buck" Flower (1937 –2004) was an American actor, writer, producer, assistant director, production manager, and casting director. He was sometimes credited as Ernest Wall, Buck Flower, George "Buck" Flower, George Flower, Buck Flowers, C. D. LaFleur, C.D. LaFleure, C.D. Lafleuer, and C.D. Lafleur.

Because of his gruff appearance, he was often cast as a drunk or homeless character. Director John Carpenter gave Flower a cameo role in several films he made throughout the 1980s.

Flower was also the father of actress/costume designer Verkina Flower and Key Grip Marcus "Roo" Flower. He died of cancer at age 66 on June 18, 2004.

Roger Blin

Roger Blin (1907 –1984) was a French actor and director. He staged world premieres of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1953 and Endgame in 1957.

He was initially part of the left-wing theatre collectives The Company of Five and The October Group. In 1935 Blin served as Antonin Artaud's assistant director for his production of Les Cenci at the Folies-Wagrams theatre in 1935. Following his work with Artaud, Blin focused on 'political street-theatre.'

During the war, Blin was a liaison between the Resistance and the French Army. His extensive career as both director and actor in both film and theatre has been largely defined by his work and relationship with Artaud, Samuel Beckett and Jean Genet.

Antonin Artaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (1896 –1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director.

He is widely recognized as a major figure of the European avant-garde. In particular, he had a profound influence on twentieth-century theatre through his conceptualization of the Theatre of Cruelty.

Known for his raw, surreal and transgressive work, his texts explored themes from the cosmologies of ancient cultures, philosophy, the occult, mysticism and indigenous Mexican and Balinese practices.

In 1943, when France was occupied by the Germans and Italians, Artaud was transferred to the psychiatric hospital in Rodez, well inside Vichy territory, where he was put under the charge of Dr. Gaston Ferdière. At Rodez Artaud underwent electroshock treatments and art therapy.

The doctor believed that Artaud's habits of crafting magic spells, creating astrology charts, and drawing disturbing images were symptoms of mental illness. Artaud denounced the electroshock treatments and consistently pleaded to have them suspended, while also ascribing to them "the benefit of having returned him to his name and to his self mastery". Scholar Alexandra Lukes points out that "the 'recovery' of his name" might have been "a gesture to appease his doctors" conception of what constitutes health".

Pierre Delattre

Pierre Delattre was a prominent figure in the Beat movement, later known for spirituality-infused novels and paintings.

In the late 1950s, Delattre was a minister leading the Bread and Wine Mission, a coffeehouse in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood that became a hub for poets, musicians and other artists. Delattre would later leave the clergy and immerse himself in Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies, which informed his first novel in 1971--"Tales of a Dalai Lama,"--as well as four later novels and a 1993 memoir, "Episodes."

Delattre's art was also shaped by a series of other jobs, including railroad switchman, cab driver, film maker, magazine contributor and teacher at levels from first grade to graduate school. A writer throughout, he began to make his living from painting in 1990 after arriving in northern New Mexico.

Toto

Jean-François Duplantier, better known by his pseudonym Jofo, is a draftsman and painter.

He is best known for Toto, his little round character surrounded by black, with bewildered and perplexed eyes.

Juana Fernández Morales de Ibarbourou

Juana Fernández Morales de Ibarbourou, also known as Juana de América, (1892 –1979) was a Uruguayan poet and one of the most popular poets of Spanish America.

Her poetry, the earliest of which is often highly erotic, is notable for her identification of her feelings with nature around her. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

Juana de Ibarbourou was an early Latin American feminist. Ibarbourou's feminism is evident in poems such as "La Higuera", in which she describes a fig tree as more beautiful than the straight and blooming trees around it, and "Como La Primavera", in which she asserts that authenticity is more attractive than any perfume. Also, in "La Cita", Ibarbourou extols her naked form devoid of traditional ornamentation, comparing her natural features to various material accessories and finding in favor of her unadorned body.

61

 Yes, 61 today...Your bonetaire is aging too. 

For those who feel like wishing me a 'Happee Birthdae': BUY A BERET!

French Squirrel

For as long as she can remember, Sydney has always been passionate about food and cooking. In an attempt to rediscover her love for food after falling trap to the often-obsessive health food world, she began her food blog, @sydney_kw.

Inspired by her late French grandmother and her time living in Bordeaux, she began sharing her meals, recipes and favorite restaurants. What started out as just a food Instagram, has now turned into a business, with @frenchsquirrel.co

Berets, nutrient-dense, vegan and gluten-free refrigerated protein bites, bateaux, nut butter-stuffed organic Medjool dates, both coated in 100% pure, unsweetened chocolate & Bisous, peanut butter and chocolate-coated vegan and gluten-free cereal clusters dusted in date sugar.

Sydney is a Certified Hormone Specialist, specializing in blood sugar management and female health through a nutrition perspective.

Thomas Mosimann

Thomas Mosimann was a Professor at the Institute of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology at the Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) from 1988 to 2014.

He had a great influence on the teaching and research in geography – the reorientation of Hannover's physical geography towards modern landscape-ecological research, the communication of complex interrelationships in an understandable and inspiring form, the transfer of scientific knowledge and methodological innovations into practice are a few milestones to mention.

Millie = 6 🥳

 

Beret role model and Newsletter pin up girl Millie 

🎉turns 6 today!🎂

George R. Riser

In 2017 George R. Riser BS’47, received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Biological Sciences. It was an auspicious award for a truly auspicious man in part because of Riser’s sustained funding of the Riser Endowed Scholarship Fund which has provided annual scholarships to thousands of graduate and undergraduate students in biology along with travel awards for field research.

Following his graduation from the University of Utah, Riser went on to New York City to study voice with Enzo Serrafini and at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. Later, returning to his science background, he became a physical chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture where he worked for 23 years. He passed away at age 98 in 2022 in Huntingdon Valley, PA. 

Miki Shigeru

In wartime Japan, folklore studies (minzokugaku) as an academic discipline emerged at the same time as the rise of the culture film (bunka eiga). Both helped mobilize peripheral areas and firmly created the image of a unitary nation.

Living by the Earth (Tsuchi ni ikiru, 1941), was directed by Miki Shigeru. Miki filmed rural life and ordinary people in the Tohoku region under the strong influence of Yanagita Kunio, a founder of Japanese folklore studies, and published a photo album ( titled People of the Snow Country (Yukiguni no minzoku, 1944) in collaboration with Yanagita. In this project, vanishing customs were paradoxically regarded as objects impossible to photograph. However, that paradox enhanced the value of the project and made it easier to construct an imagined national community through the discourse of folklore studies.

Elleni the Label

Elleni, the Label is an Australian crafted beret label, made by Elleni from Brisbane.

It is not often that I recommend a “competitor”, but these berets are the stereotypical exception. 

Elleni the Label is a true one-woman-company, from making to marketing, packing to modelling - it's all done by Elleni.

More than any text, just look at the photos and admire Elleni’s incredible talent and craftsmanship.

Cor du Roi

Corduroy is a textile with a distinctively raised "cord" or wale texture. Both velvet and corduroy derive from fustian fabric, a variety of heavy cloth woven from cotton, chiefly prepared for menswear.

Corduroy looks as if it is made from multiple cords laid parallel to each other.

The width of the wales varies by wale count—the number of wales per inch. A wale is a column of loops running lengthwise, corresponding to the warp of woven fabric. The lower the number, the thicker the wales' width (e.g., 4-wale is much thicker than 11-wale).

Like French and British workers, I have always felt a strong liking for corduroy and a big fan of the corduroy caps and clothing by Le Laboureur. However much I like the 'Casquette Laboureur Corduroy, I kept searching for Basque berets in this illustrious material. 

Almost a year ago, I found 2 beautiful Japanese made berets; one by 'Higher' and one by 'Two Black Cats'; favourites for all seasons. Unfortunately, hard to get and not cheap.

Recently, I found the excellent corduroy models by Japanese beret manufacturer Choi Toshi, which are now available at South Pacific Berets!