How to and how not to

I find it interesting how often people ask me how they should wear their beret and, searching the internet, it seems to be a major problem for (potential) beret wearers. There is no right way, of course - you should wear your beret the way you like it, whether it's leaning to the left, right, on the back of your head, pulled forward in a bill-shape...Soldiers seem to be most fuzzy about the way they look (see previous post A Sign of our Greatness..?), but there are plenty of manuals around for women on how to and how not to wear a beret.

It is said that for some people the left and right leaning side showed their political affiliation; Jean Paul Sartre ballanced his beret flat on his head, while writer Heinrich Böll pulled his right over his head.

Window Shopping

    

  





  

Excersise R54

Where else, but in the Basque Country could you find a sign like this? 

From the Register of Copyright Entries

Béret (Le) ; paroles et musique de Lucien Boyer, of France. © Aug. 30, 1931; 1 c. Oct 23; E for. 21174; Editions Salabert, Paris. 26293

Where to get your beret?

Over the last weeks I have received a number of emails from people asking me where they should go to get a good beret, or if I sell berets myself. 

In previous posts I have mentioned a few brands that I consider great quality berets and suppliers that I have good experiences with. Maybe good to repeat these here:

Boinas Elósegui from Tolosa, Spain produces one of the best berets around, or boina. Beautiful berets and quality workmanship to the last detail, from a company that has made berets for over 150 years. Elóseguis come in a range of qualities; their top of the range is the Super Lujo, but there are many more choices. 

Main colours are black, blue and red, while some berets can be ordered in brown, green and others as well. The whole range is visible on their extensive web site www.boinaselosegui.com

To promote these beautiful berets in this part of the world, I sell the Elósegui Super Lujo in the three main colours - look here or drop me a line, if interested.  

Another brand I really like is the Tolosa Tupida (Bonigor SA), from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They produce a range range of berets in a great variety of sizes and colours. Unfortunately, the factory does not have a web site or a direct ordering facility. 

www.gauchoclothes.com sell most of the range and have easy credit card payment facilities, while 

http://www.regionalesarg.com.ar/ is cheaper and has a larger range, but no easy payment set up.

The Tolosa Tupida (code 1022) without headband is one of my favourites for daily wear and when doing chores on the land, gardening, etc (I've got four, in different colours!); less stiff than the Elosegui Super Lujo and more affordable. 

The Tolosa Tupida (code 1355/56) is, for me, the only acceptable cotton beret; a fantastic hat, beautiffully made and extremely comfortable - with or without real leather headband. 

For me, these two brands stand well above other makes, but obviously, there is a lot of personal taste involved here. 

Despite their image, I haven't seen a French beret that compares with an Elosegui, but this may be partly because of the (synthetic, sometimes leather) headbands that are more commonly used in France. 

If any specific questions, please drop me a line. 

    

An Essay on the Txapela

A web site with beautiful pictures of berets by Joseba Bolot and Javier Izquierdo is http://www.elrectanguloenlamano.com/works/txapelas/work.html called "An Essay on the Txapela".

From his introduction: 

An attire complement with which the Basques protect and tune up their ideas. The beret has turned into a universal auxiliary garment, but Basque Country inhabitants wear it in a unique way. A whole lifespan is necessary to smartly match both head and txapela. This photographic series is displayed as an affectionate homage to the users of such a stylish clothing article.

© J. Bolot and J. Izquierdo

Nice ad - from the New-Yorker

The Beret Project Censored in Myanmar

My friend A, presently living in Burma / Myanmar, received the following message when trying to access this web site:

Access has been denied  

The access to requested URL has been denied. 

"www.beretandboina.blogspot.com" 

To have the rating of this web page re-evaluated please contact your web moderator.

Effectively, this means that The Beret Project is officially censored in Burma (and I am proud of that!). Strange though, with all these generals donning their hats...

Boinas Marrons / Brown Berets

The Brown Berets are an activist Latino community group with roots in the radicalism of the 1960's.

The group was modelled on and inspired by the Black Panther Party, as well as by the American Indian Movement, Young Lords, Anti-war Movements, Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement, Reies Tijerina, and revolutionary movements around the world.

The Brown Berets focussed on community organizing against police brutality and educational equality. Nowadays, units exist in most sections of California 

and a few in other south-western states in the US. They primarily serve as a visible symbol of historical Raza resolve at demonstrations and political parades.

Beret Contract Calls for Australian Wool

Remember my post "A sign of our greatness…?" (April 29)? The following article may explain why US soldiers find their berets uncomfortable. When politics and nationalism overrules quality and commonsense, it is the wearer of the beret that suffers…

Beret Contract Calls for Australian Wool

March 19, 2004 -- U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s (D-S.D.) letter to President Bush stressed his concerns about the Coalition Provisional Authorities (CPA) apparent favoring of Australian products over U.S. products in their letting of contracts. 
The CPA’s most recent contract for dark blue berets are intended for the troops in Iraq. According to the Washington Post, the contract states, “Specifications for the berets are 100% wool (Australian), without emblem, 2 holes for ventilation…” 

While any contractors supposedly are allowed to freely bid on this and other contracts, the specifications clearly call for 100% Australian wool. 
Daschle stated, “This matter of preferential treatment for Australian wool is a serious concern that deserves immediate attention.” 

He urged that the contract be curtailed and re-let and “the least you can do is ensure that contracts let by the Coalition Provisional authority in Iraq do not give a preference or competitive advantage to other nations – none of whom have already contributed as much as the United State to the effort in Iraq.”

Mr Daschle could learn a lot from anyone wearing one of those great Spanish boinas. The world's best berets, after all, are made from Australian merino wool – what else needs saying?

More White Berets

Once you start looking for white berets, you'll find a lot more than razor blades with Alem's image. Like the 1941 Argentinean movie Boina Blanca, of which I found it impossible to find more information than Hal Erickson's –not so positive- review in the All Movie Guide: 

Boina Blanca (White Beret) is set in during the Argentine Revolution of the 1890s. The story is a melodramatic imbroglio involving a pair of lovers separated by the vagaries of history and ideology. Every so often, the film stops breast-beating in favour of comedy relief. For the most part, however, Boina Blanca is an endless parade of historical re-creations, patriotic songs and righteous fervor, undoubtedly palatable for Argentine filmgoers but rough sledding for anyone else. Sabina Olmos goes through her usual weepy histrionics as the put-upon heroine, while Francisco Alvarez provides the much-needed laughs.If any of you know more about this film, or have pictures to add, please drop me a line. 

Another white beret is worn by Australian ex-navy man Jim Ford, 

the oldest survivor of the Allied fleet that patrolled the Arctic waters during WWII. 

He still dons his white beret proudly, as you can see on this link 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/04/24/2552207.htm

shot at the Canberra 2009 ANZAC Memorial Day.

 

Nothing more than this picture I could find on the Boina Blanca Tango, by Raimundo L. Cartier. Anyone more information on this tango..?

 

Royal Tank Regt - Again

A contribution thanks to Major Colin Hepburn, the Regimental Secretary of the Royal Tank Regiment. The following poem appeared in the Tank Corps Journal; the autor is only known as E.M.B. 

 

Oh! We're waiting for our Berets

And we're waiting for our tanks;

And we're waiting to return a very

Cordial vote of thanks.

 

To the Deities who've saved us

From that grease spot on the crown

And from that headache round the temples

When you got the chin strap down.

 

From that peak that saved our eyesight

When the sun was shining hot,

And passed us out at musketry

A blinking third class shot.

 

'Tis said the beret lets the wet

Run trickling down your back,

But the Jocks have got a bonnet

And they've not complained o' that!

 

Our beret has a flappy side

Which droops upon one ear.

There's more in that than meets the eye,

You bet my dearie dear.

 

The all-round traverse to the flap

Is worth a mint of gold,

You flap it round when it is hot,

And ditto when it's cold.

 

You can drop your beret in the sump,

Or leave it on the track

And get it back as good as new

Because it's issued black.

 

So we're waiting, yes, we're waiting

For our Berets and tanks,

And we're waiting to return a very

Cordial vote of thanks. 

Boina Blanca and Leandro Nicéforo Alem

Leandro Nicéforo Alem (11 March 1841 – 1 July 1896) was an Argentinean politician and the founder and leader of the Radical Civic Union. After returning from the war against Paraguay in 1868, he joined Adolfo Alsina's Autonomist Party, showing a skill for incisive rhetoric in public debates and strong anti-authoritarian and democratic ideas. In 1877 Alem, together with his friend Aristóbulo del Valle founded the Republican Party, organized the Youth Civic Union (later the Radical Civic Union) and in July 1890 Alem was one of the leaders of the revolution that forced Juárez Celman to resign.  After a failed uprising in 1893, Alem saw many of his supporters leave him. Feeling disappointed and betrayed, he committed suicide on 1 July 1896, shooting himself in his right temple.

His trade mark white beret became a symbol for the Radicals and centre-left parties in Argentina. 

Homero Manzi paid tribute to Alem in his tango "Milonga del 900", a number of towns and cities in Argentina are named after Alem and, with his Boina Blanca, or white beret, he became a bit of a cult icon avant la lettre, with his picture on various consumer items. The razor blades shown here are from Germany, the US, Argentina and Switserland. 

The Black Beret of the Royal Tank Regiment

The British Army has made a habit of adopting some headdress belonging to its allies or the enemy after each war. 

The bearskin of the Guards came from Napoleon's Imperial Guard; The Lancer's Cap was adopted in 1815, and came from the Poles and the top heavy shako adopted for the Infantry after the Napoleonic Wars was then in vogue among Britain's Continental Allies. The new style stovepipe shako adopted in 1855 was similar to that of their French allies in the Crimean War and eventually, the beret was adopted as well.

Originally, tank drivers and gunners were supplied with a primitive brown leather helmet, which was soon discarded. They were also issued with tin helmets with a chain mail visor to protect their eyes against splash - they were seldom worn.

Much of the uniform and equipment of soldiers during World War One was quite impractical for use inside a tank. In particular, the vision apertures in a tank were so small that it was necessary to keep the eyes very close to them in order to get even a limited vision. Thus, any headdress with a peak was entirely unsuitable. In May 1918, General Elles and Colonel Fuller were discussing the future of the Tank Corps and its uniform and General Elles tried on a beret of the 70th Chasseurs Alpins who were billeted nearby. A black beret was selected as it would not show oil stains.

No change in uniform was possible during the war, but after a prolonged argument with the War Office, the back beret was approved by King George V on 5 March 1924. The black beret remained the exclusive headdress of the Royal Tank Corps until its practical value was recognised by others and its use extended to the majority of the Royal Armoured Corps in 1940. On the introduction of the blue beret in 1949, the Royal Tank Regiment reclaimed its right to the exclusive use of the black beret, which may not be worn by any other Regiment or Corps (with the exception of the Berkshire and Westminster Dragoons Squadrons of The Royal Yeomanry).

Le Béret by Philippe Jouvion

It has taken me a long time, but finally I managed to get hold of a copy of Philippe Jouvion's book "Le Béret".

Published in 1998 by Éditions du Rouergue, it was either extremely popular or a very small print run – it's a hard to find book only 11 years after its publication. Loaded with anecdotes and pictures it makes great reading (in French).

The focus is very much on the French beret; the history of the industry in the Béarn, French icons, the French resistance and military, companies like Blancq Olibet with short references to the Spanish history of boinas and the Spanish Civil War (nice photograph of Hemingway, donning his boina) and the beret in American movies (Faye Donaway in Bonnie and Clyde, for example).

 

A beautiful large size picture book. If interested, try to find a second hand copy through sites like www.ebay.fr, www.abebooks.com or www.priceminister.com. 

The Beret and the Spanish Civil War

If there is one historical event that people associate with the beret, it is most likely the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

However, the three Carlist wars between 1833 and 1876, formed the beginning of the use of the beret as a piece of uniform and identification for a political group.

In the beginning the ultra conservative catholic Carlists wore the traditional black beret that was already worn in the Basque region. After the Battle of Alsasua (22 April, 1834) the captured Liberal troops from La Mancha, Valencia and Andalusia that chose to join the victors (and that way stay alive) were given distinctive (French made) red berets which were rejected by the regular Carlist troops.

Originally the red berets were only worn by this 'elite' battalion of Guías de Navarra (Navarese Guides). The regular Carlist troops chose distinctive blue berets. The red beret soon gained popularity among all Carlists, despite turning the wearers into great target points for sharpshooters. Since then the red beret (with or without tassels) is very much their symbol.

 

I quote from J. MacClancy's  'The Decline of Carlism':

"The beret became to signify Carlism and all it implied."

"One requité, about to be shot by a Republican firing squad who have removed his beret, shouts: Please, leave me the beret! I want to die with it on as the best safe conduct to present myself before the Tribunal of God, for whom I die." 

In the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 Carlists still wore their red beret, with tassel. Their opponents – Republican, communist and anarchist militias and the International Brigaders also wore berets. Theirs were generally a black or navy blue beret (traditional head gear of the Spanish workers) or a khaki military style beret.

Ernest Hemingway donned a beret during the conflict, and for many International Brigaders it was a first priority to acquire a beret upon arrival in Spain.