The 'Liguette'

Once upon a time, all berets were fitted with a liguette; the clever internal drawstring that has now become a trademark of Boneterias Auloronesa and Aotearoa. 

With the Industrial Revolution, the production of berets became more mechanized too; machines taking over the work that was previously done by hand and, more important, in larger quantities.

To facilitate a liguette and at the same time ensure that the rim of the beret (the head-opening) stays smooth without any wrinkles, the sewing needs to happen within a very short time after the process of felting - something that simply can't be done when producing large numbers by machines. 
Instead, a symbolic bow was placed on the leather headband (headbands only came into use by the early 1920's) - the reminder of what was once the bow of the liguette, but utterly useless.

My Hawaiian friend Brendon sent me a link to a website that shows how to make the perfect bow. It takes a little practice, but the result is certainly worth it!

Thanks Brendon

Berets in Times of Terror

No matter how long I sit behind this PC, I can't come up with anything sensible to write after the stupid and senseless acts of terrorism last week. 

What I do know, is that we'll see a big increase of berets on the streets of Paris over the months and possibly years to come; not the favoured Basque berets of artists, writers and intellectuals, but military in a variety of colours.

It is a sad world, always has been and I am very doubtful it will ever change. 

Alas, after the hideous attack on Charlie Hebdo, earlier this year, we did see a massive turn out of demonstrators wearing Basque berets, showing (French) defiance against the attack on the founding principles of the French Republic: liberté, égalité, fraternité (here pictured in Orthez).

To me, the beret is not only my personal reality shield (thanks, Michael), but also a symbol of culture, of thinking and of old values that need defending.

Eugène Villon

Painter and aquarellist Eugène Villon was born in The Hague (Netherlands) on 26 December 1879 and died in Caluire (France) on 7 November 1951.

In Nice he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts where he followed the teachings of Auguste Clément Joseph Herst. He followed a classical education, from learning to draw to painting. He was a gifted student and at the age of sixteen he was given the job of the mural decoration of the great theater of Geneva.

Villon was made ​​Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. This decoration was handed to him by President Albert Lebrun. Criticism cited his talent and J. Étiévant wrote in 1914, "I do not think any artist is at this point as near to his absolute mastery and perfection."

Beat Poet Royston Ellis

Royston Ellis (1941) is an English novelist, travel writer and erstwhile beat poet. In June 1960, he travelled to Liverpool, England to perform a poetry reading at Liverpool University. As he usually read his poetry with backing from jazz musicians, Ellis searched among the locals for suitable musicians to accompany him and met the young group known as The Beatles.

Ellis bonded with John Lennon in particular, both sharing an enthusiasm for the American Beat poets, and spent the week at 3 Gambier Terrace with Lennon, Sutcliffe, et al. Lennon saw Ellis as "the converging point of rock 'n' roll and literature".

Ellis is one of the people the song "Paperback Writer" was based on, quoting a comment he had made years earlier.

At 20 Ellis retired from the teenage beatnik and rock and roll scene and left England permanently for a life of travel that took him to East Berlin and Moscow, where he read his poetry on stage with the iconic Russian poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko. Then, via Guernsey where he became a registered ferry boat engineer, he sailed to the Canary Islands and acted as an Arab with Cliff Richard in the movie Wonderful Life.

He hiked around West Africa then landed up in the British Virgin Islands before settling, in 1966, in Dominica where he wrote the best-selling Bondmaster series of historical novels as Richard Tresillian.

In 1979, after his hillside log cabin in Dominica was blown down by Hurricane David, he moved to Sri Lanka where he still lives in a colonial cottage overlooking the Indian Ocean.

Mistress America

Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is rescued from her solitude by her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke, an adventurous gal about town who entangles her in alluringly mad schemes. Mistress America is a comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, makeshift families, and cat-stealing.

Mistress America premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2015.

Le Tabéret

Meet Le Tabéret (a contraction of the words tabouret and beret - tabouret in French means stool, and you all know what beret means...).

The production is part of an eco-responsible approach: the seat made of birch and ash, taken from the French forest and made in the Jura, without varnish or chemical surface treatment with an invisible bonding.

The berets come from Laulhère.

Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider (1938 –1982) was a film actress born in Vienna and held German and French citizenship. 

She started her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957 she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy. In 1958 she met Alain Delon and they became engaged; Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. 

Her engagement to Delon ended in 1963 and Schneider subsequently married twice. The son from her first marriage died in an accident in 1981 when he was 14. In May 1982, aged 43, Schneider was found dead of cardiac arrest in her Paris apartment.

Vintage Basques

Some vintage photographs from the Basque Country. Fisherman, shepherd and a couple in their Sunday best.

Many nice and sometimes beautiful photo's can be found on various auction web sites and places like Ebay.

Playmobil Berets

Playmobil is a line of toys produced by the Brandstätter Group, headquartered in Zirndorf, Germany.

The signature Playmobil toy is a 7.5 cm (approximately 3 inch) tall (1:24 scale) human figure, in its early days known as a "klicky". A wide range of accessories, buildings and vehicles, as well as many sorts of animals, are also part of the Playmobil line.

Playmobil toys are produced in themed series of sets as well as individual special figures and playsets. New products and product lines developed by a 50-strong development team are introduced frequently, and older sets are discontinued. 

Promotional and one-off products are sometimes produced in very limited quantities. These practices have helped give rise to a sizeable community of collectors. Collector activities extend beyond collecting and free-form play and include customization, miniature wargaming, and the creation of photo stories and stop motion films, or simply as decoration.

And of course, a good many wearing (Basque) berets!

Thanks, José

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (1900 - 1986) was a Bulgarian philosopher, pedagogue, alchemist, mystic, magus and astrologer. A leading 20th-century teacher of Western Esotericism in Europe, he was a disciple of the universal spiritual Master Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno), the founder of the Universal White Brotherhood.

Aivanhov’s philosophy teaches that everybody, regardless of race, religion, social position, intellectual ability or material means, is able to take part in the realization of a new period of brotherhood and peace on earth. This happens through the individual's personal transformation: growth in perfection and in harmony with the divine world. Whatever the topic, he invariably focuses on how one can better conduct life on earth. Aivanhov taught that to achieve a better life, one must have a high ideal: "... if you have a High Ideal, such as the bringing of the Kingdom of God on earth, you obtain everything you wished for, you taste plenitude."

Romare Bearden

Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist and writer who depicted African-American life. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden moved to New York City at a very young age and went on to graduate from NYU in 1935. He began his artistic career creating scenes of the American South. Later, he endeavored to express the humanity he felt was lacking in the world after his experience in the US Army during World War II on the European front. He later returned to Paris in 1950 and studied Art History and Philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1950.

Archibald John Motley

Archibald John Motley, Junior (1891 –1981) was an African-American painter. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918.

He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African-American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America. 

He specialized in portraiture and saw it “as a means of affirming racial respect and race pride.”

Palmer C. Hayden (2)

I first published on artist Palmer C. Hayden four years ago (here), before I learned about the collection at the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles.

Disambiguation: not the California African American Museum in Exposition Park. The Museum of African American Art operates on a nano-budget in a Macy’s department store in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

The artist’s widow, Miriam, bequeathed 40 Haydens, several iconic (Below, Midsummer Night in Harlem, 1938, and His Hammer in his Hand,1944-7.)

That was a vote of confidence to an institution founded in 1976 and so-far dependent on a retailer’s largesse. It must have also been a reflection on the disinterest of larger museums in art by blacks.

For the most part MAAA shows local artists. Its Haydens deserve to be better known.

Benoît Pelard and the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett

The Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett is the most prestigious and oldest aeronautical competition involving the best gas balloon pilots of the world. This international sports event is organized each year in and by the country which won the trophy two years before. Until 2008, the winner organized the following year edition, but regarding the task, the regulation has been modified. 

This legendary race was held for the first time on September 30th, 1906, at the Tuileries in Paris - France. It has inherited its name from its founder James Gordon Bennett Jr., American press tycoon, patron of motor and air sports. In spite of the difficulties of this competition, the principle of the race is very simple: to cover the highest distance in the air, without being limited by the time. Pilots have to be self-restraint and tough to be able to hold the race, which can last until 90 hours!

Benoît Pelard,"The Man with the Beret", runs the hotel “L’Eclipse”, in Heillecourt, near the launch site of the 57th Coupe Aeronautique Gordon Bennett – on the Grand Nancy-Tomblaine Aeropole and is a competing balloon pilot.  He fell in love with gas balloons, so much so that he reproduced the flight of the famous aviator from Nancy, Marie Marvingt, who flew from France to England with her gas balloon. He has already taken part in the “Coupe Gordon Bennett” as a competitor (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012).

Winemaker Bill Mosby

When asked to describe winemaker Bill Mosby’s character, wife Jeri answers with a smile: "Strangely enough, I would describe my husband much the same way I would characterize his wines. He’s about integrity, intelligence, strength, tenacity, passion and complexity. He’s rebellious — not afraid to dream, then make those dreams come true."

Bill’s winemaking interests began during his early college wrestling days in Oregon almost 50 years ago. "I fermented anything I could get my hands on," says Mosby. "I was — and still am — intrigued by the whole process." When Bill talks about his early winemaking days, he does so with an air of excitement. "As much science as we know today — technology and all that — we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the alchemic nature of wine," he explains.

If you've visited the winery, then you’ve tasted his award-winning wines, caught a glimpse or two of his vineyards, and are somewhat familiar with his eccentricities.