Photographer Richard Kalvar's Berets

Richard Kalvar (1944, Brooklyn, NY) is an American photographer who has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1975.

A trip to Europe in 1966 with a Pentax camera given him by Ducrot inspired him to become a photographer himself. On his return to New York he worked at Modernage photo lab. Two years later he moved to Paris and joined Vu (photo agency).

Kalvar's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in France, including at Agathe Gaillard gallery and at Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. He has worked around the world, especially in England, France, Italy, Japan and the United States.

NEW: Bérets Casquette Auloronesa

Brand new and only a very small number in stock: Bérets Casquette Auloronesa!

A true 10p béret with a peak. Without doubt, the most comfortable, best quality, Béret Casquette you could possibly find; with a fully adjustable headband with internal string and the trademark Béarnaise cows on the embroidered label.
http://southpacificberets.com/france-boneteria-auloronesa.php 

Until late April, only 6 available.

German Photographer Walde Huth

Born in Stuttgart in 1923, Walde Huth studied photography from 1940 to 1943 under Prof. Walter Hege at the School of Applied Art in Weimar. She worked until 1945 in the colour photography development department at Agfa/Wolfen, before she became a freelancer after the end of the Second World War with portrait, theatre and art photography. 

By 1953 Walde Huth was already running a studio in Stuttgart with eight employees. Her work for Esslinger Wolle gave her the experience for her enormous success with creations by Christian Dior, Jacques Fath, Givenchy or Maggy Rouff: the world famous “New Look”.
From the 50s to the 80s the photographic protocol of the west German product worlds emerged in a consistently unmistakable orchestration, perfected procedures and rational implementation. 

After Walde Huth closed the studio she had shared with her husband when he died in 1986, she focused once again intensively on realizing freelance themes.

Her images are featured in the collections of international museums around the world. Walde Huth, style-conscious, with a sharp eye and wit, inspired and inspiring, remains one of the great intellects of German photography. She died in 2011.

Last of the Blancq-Olibets!

Since the announcement of the closure of France's oldest beret manufacturer Blancq-Olibet, last February, there has been an incredible rush on all the Blancq-Olibet berets left in stock. 

Many have sold out while some models are only available in one or two sizes.

All what remains at present is now listed on one page (http://southpacificberets.com/blancq-olibet-clearance.php), apart from the headband-less (One-Size) berets, the Berrueta's and Petit Basques, of which there is still a reasonable stock.

If you'd like to own your piece of beret history, order now!

German Photographer Rudolf Kroll

I found this photograph of Rudolf Kroll (taken Rösel / Glauchau, 24 december, 1956) on the web site of SLUB Dresden, the German photo-library. 

The information on the web site tells of Rudolf Kroll being a photographer during World war I at the Palestine front. Eager to find out more, i tried sourcing these photographs, but have been unseuccesful so far (any help much appreciated!). 

Miguel Torga

Miguel Torga, pseudonym of Adolfo Correia da Rocha (1907 – 1995), is considered one of the greatest Portuguese writers of the 20th century. He wrote poetry, short stories, theater and a 16 volume diary.

He was born in the village of São Martinho de Anta in the Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro region, to small-time farmer parents. After a short spell as student in a catholic seminary in Lamego, his father sent him to Brazil in 1920, where he worked on an uncle's coffee plantation. His uncle, finding him to be a clever student, decided to pay for his studies. Torga returned to Portugal i and in 1933 graduated in Medicine at the University of Coimbra. He practiced in his village of São Martinho de Anta and in other places around the country. By this time, he started writing and self-publishing his books for a number of years. In 1941, he established himself as an otolaryngologist physician in Coimbra.

He was a member of the literary movement Presença for a short period before founding two cultural magazines in the 1930s. After the publication of the book O Quarto Dia da Criação do Mundo he was arrested for two months, between December 1939 and February 1940.

His agnostic beliefs are reflected on his work, which deals mainly with the nobility of the human condition in a beautiful but ruthless world where God is either absent or nothing but a passive and silent, indifferent creator.

The recognition of his work earned him several important awards, as the Montaigne Prize, in 1981, and the first ever Prémio Camões in 1989. He was several times nominated for the Nobel Prize of Literature, from 1960 to 1994, and it was often believed that he would be the first Portuguese language writer to win.

Thank you, Pedro

"Wenn du jung bist gehört dir die Welt"

When You're Young, the World Belongs to You (German: Wenn du jung bist, gehört dir die Welt) is a 1934 Austrian comedy film directed by Richard Oswald and starring the Jewish tenor Joseph Schmidt, Otto Treßler and Lilliane Dietz. 

Along with "Adventures on the Lido", it was denied a permit to be shown in German cinemas because Oswald was deemed an enemy of National Socialism.

Many Basque Berets appear in the film - a real treat to watch these old fragments. 

Thanks, Volker Obertimpe

Volker Obertimpe

Hurdy gurdy

The hurdy gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents — small wedges, typically made of wood — against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board to make the vibration of the strings audible.

Most hurdy gurdies have multiple drone strings, which give a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian and Galician folk music.

The hurdy-gurdy tradition is well developed in Eastern Europe, particularly in Hungary, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. In Ukraine it is known as the lira or relia. It was and still is played by professional, often blind, itinerant musicians known as lirnyky. Their repertoire has mostly para-religious themes. Most of it originated in the Baroque period. In Eastern Ukraine the repertoire includes unique historic epics known as dumy and folk dances.

Lirnyky were categorised as beggars by the Russian authorities and fell under harsh repressive measures if they were caught performing in the streets of major cities until 1902, when the authorities were asked by ethnographers attending the 12th All-Russian Archaeological conference to stop persecuting them.

In the 1930s this tradition was almost totally eradicated by the Soviet authorities when some 250-300 lirnyky were rounded up for an ethnographic conference and executed as a socially undesirable element in the new progressive contemporary Soviet society.

Citizen Smith

Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom. 

Citizen Smith starred Robert Lindsay as "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" living in Tooting, South London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. 

'Wolfie' is a reference to the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone who used the pseudonym Citizen Smith in order to evade capture by the English. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting". 

In reality, he is an unemployed dreamer and petty criminal whose plans fall through because of laziness and disorganisation.

International Women's Day

Mounted Berets

 So called Health&Safety Regulations forbid the riding of horses without a helmet in quite a few countries (similar to riding a bike, but that's another story).

What would the pampa of Patagonia look like if Argentina and Chile enforced these regulations on gauchos?

No better riding gear than a beret; it keeps the head warm and dry, doesn't blow of in the wind, no peak that gets in the way and with a bit of flight, no sun in the eyes.

 Some 90% of Bonigor's (non-military) beret production goes to gauchos, farmers and peasants. I can't think of any other group this size that is so faithful to the beret, or boina. 

Gaúcho da Fronteira

Gaúcho da Fronteira, stage name of Heber Artigas Armúa Fróis (1947), is a singer and musician from Uruguay, but now a naturalized Brazilian. He is one of the most popular performers of gaucho regional music .

 He began playing guitar , accordion and bandoneon as a child and in 1968 he joined the group "Os Vaqueanos" with whom he recorded numerous albums.

In 1975 he recorded his first solo album, titled "Gaúcho da Fronteira"  and reaffirmed himself as a representative of the traditional music of the Pampas.

In the 1980s his songs became popular throughout Brazil. In the 1990s he returned to playing at traditional Brazilian music events  and in 1999 released the CD "Forronerão" with the group ‘Embers do Forró’.

My Fair Ad-Man

The great Mad magazine ran an amusing musical parody piece in 1960 or thereabouts, right when Don Draper and his Sterling Cooper colleagues were establishing a beachhead. 

Based on Lerner and Leowe’s My Fair Lady, “My Fair Adman” was a dryly cynical comment about Madison Avenue values in which Cary Grant was more or less Henry Higgins, Charles Laughton played a version of Colonel Pickering and Frank Sinatra was Eliza Doolittle (i.e., “Irving Mallion,” a Greenwich Village beatnik with a beret and a Van Dyke).

Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman

Sir Hubert Ferdinand Opperman, (1904 – 1996), referred to as Oppy by Australian and French crowds, was an Australian cyclist and politician, whose endurancecycling feats in the 1920s and 1930s earned him international acclaim.

Hubert rode a bicycle from the age of eight until his 90th birthday, when his wife Mavys, fearing for his health and safety, forced him to stop. His stamina and endurance in cycling earned Opperman the status of one of the greatest Australian sportsmen.

Opperman's career ended with World War II when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force. He served from 1940 to 1945 and rose to flight lieutenant. He raced briefly after the war but retired in 1947.

Beret belonging to Hubert Opperman, 1928. Photo: National Museum of Australia

Opperman joined the Liberal Party of Australia after the war and in 1949 was elected to the Parliament of Australia for the Victorian electorate of Corio centred on Geelong. He beat a senior Labour minister, J. J. Dedman and held the seat for 17 years before appointment to High Commissioner for Malta.