From Blog.size.co.uk, a nice article on berets and beret-wearing (and honoured to see myself mentioned in the article):
The Beret Is Back
Signifier of creativity, rebellion, and bohemianism — the
beret is making an appearance once more on the streets of our cities. Tony
Sylvester investigates.
“Some of us are wearing berets.” Cult style chronicler
Mister Mort stands in front of a mirror filming his outfit for his Snapchat.
Known for his appreciation for streetwear and classic preppy looks, he’s
rocking a grey sweatsuit, Air Force 1s and a double breasted overcoat. But the
iPhone pauses defiantly at his headgear; a black wool beret sits atop, a
somewhat eccentric cap to the ensemble. But damn, it works.
New Yorker Mister Mort (aka Mordechai Rubinstein) has just
been on a whirlwind month – long trip through the winter menswear shows of
Europe, taking in London, Florence, Milan and Paris, shooting the great and
good outside and inside the runway shows and exhibition halls. Like a lot of
other observers, he has noticed the revival of possibly one of the last great
pieces of historical menswear that has yet to be rediscovered: the humble
beret. In an age where every sartorial stone has been turned over, every facet
of the male wardrobe appropriated and reinvented, it’s all the more remarkable
that it has managed to stay out of the limelight for so long.
Europeans have worn knitted woollen head coverings since
time immemorial, but the term beret doesn’t appear in parlance until the early
19th Century. The shepherds in the Pyrenees on the French-Spanish border found
it the perfect foil for sun, cold and rain. It dominated the surrounding Basque
Country, spreading along the coast, to become the default head gear for the
working classes. From the fishermen of Northern France to the factory workers
in rural Italy, its presence commanded early photographs of proletarian life. As
the century wore on its wearing took on a significance beyond its original
practicality, becoming imbued with a sense of whimsical nostalgia for an older,
more simple age. It was painters who first put in this potency; Claude Monet’s
famous self portrait of 1886 sees the archetype of the bereted and bearded
Bohemian staring back at us wistfully, indelibly inking the image of the beret
as the artisan’s choice.
In the early part of the 20th Century, the beret climbed
several rungs up the sartorial ladder thanks to some unlikely royal patronage.
Rather taken with the headgear of a Jai Alai player (the now almost extinct
Basque sport played with goatskin ball and wicker scoop), Edward Windsor,
Prince of Wales, took to sporting a beret on the golf courses and promenades of
Biarritz. Like so many of his innovations it became rather fashionable, lending
an aristocratic loucheness to linen slacks, co-respondent shoes and polo
shirts. By the summer of 1935, Esquire magazine were referring to this as
“almost the resort uniform”. Post WW2, Dizzy Gillespie and a generation of
musicians took cues from both this Jazz Age elegance and the earlier artistic
chic, handing the beret over to the Beat Generation — spearheaded by writers
and poets like Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
— forever codifying it in American eyes as the choice of non-conformist
rebellion.
The next chapter in the beret story is undoubtedly the most
iconic and enduring. As the official photographer to Fidel Castro’s socialist
revolution, Cuban Alberto Korda had been charting the rise of the movement both
nationally and internationally. On March 5, 1960, Korda shot a portrait of
little-known guerrilla leader Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara which would encapsulate the
idealised image of the ‘revolutionary’ for the world to see. Proud, stern and
handsome, Che stares into the future and the photograph, known as ‘Guerrillero
Heroica’, would become a trademark; a logo emblazoned on the walls and chests
of every radical left-wing would-be revolutionary, one of the most famous portraits
of the 20th Century. The beret had a military pedigree at this point too,
having been worn first by Basque soldiers and eventually by elite units the
world over such as the Green Berets, the Parachute Regiment and the Foreign
Legion. In the radicalised ‘70s, any beret wearer would be aligning themselves
with the militant left in the public’s eyes, thanks to its ubiquitous presence
on the heads of everyone from The Black Panther Party to the IRA.
This association lives on today. I asked writer and owner of
the web shop South Pacific Berets, Daan Kolthoff for his thoughts; “I wear my
berets to continue a long tradition in my family (father, grandfather and
further), but also because of my positive associations with Basque berets,” he
explained. “Often boineros (beret wearers) tend to be the more humanist,
liberal, progressive people. I have worked for many years in medical emergency
aid and I saw this confirmed in places like Bosnia and the Caucasus, where in
the middle of war and atrocities, I would always meet a fellow boinero, someone
who managed to keep his decency and humanity.”
Robert Spangle, the GQ street style photographer who blogs
under the moniker 1000 Yard Style, agrees: “I think it’s safe to infer a guy
wearing a beret is feeling a bit revolutionary, and probably like the French,
is more inclined to write than he is to shoot. The beret is also distinctly
French, so there is a nod of solidarity there, and with Paris so heavily
embattled it’s no wonder people are attracted to a sign of militant,
intellectual solidarity. France has always been a diplomatic state, and with
borders closing and countries returning to isolationism, maybe the beret is a
sort of international signal flare, a light in the night to keep things
together.”
