Fez (hat)

This article is about the red hat. For the Moroccan city, see Fes.

For other uses, see Fez (disambiguation).

File:Fes.jpg

A fez

The fez (Turkish: fes, plural fezzes or fezes), or tarboosh (Arabic: طربوش, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [tˤɑɾˤˈbuːʃ]), is a felt hat either in the shape of a red truncated cone or in the shape of a short cylinder made of kilim fabric. Both usually have tassels. Originally a Greek headgear fashionable among the inhabitants of the Aegean Islands, it was widely adopted in the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century as a symbol of progress and modernity.

Origin

Portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II after his clothing reforms

Andrea Mantegna- The Court of Mantua (1471-74) At the left, Ludovico II Gonzaga and relatives some wearing earlier forms in the same shape, color and material of the Fez

Before 1826, the fez had been a Greek Christian fashion, worn in the Aegean Islands. This is what made it a symbol of modernity. It was also found in the Maghreb and was known by the city of its own name Fez. It is known that after the Moors and Jews expulsion of 1492 they took their Northern Mediterranean Renaissance fashions along with them to North Africa and the Near East. The production of the headgear was developed to high fashionable heights by Jewish tailors with a special style of it in Tunis by the XVII century when fashions in Europe already changed in less traditional ways. The artisans involved in their making were the most selective members of the cities Souq.

After Sultan Mahmud II suppressed the Janissaries in 1826, he decreed that the official headgear for his modernized military would be the fez with a cloth wrapped around it. In 1829, he ordered his civil officials to wear the plain fez, in the expectation that the populace at large would follow suit. This was a radically egalitarian measure which replaced the elaborate sumptuary laws which signaled rank, religion, and occupation, allowing prosperous non-Muslims to express their wealth in competitions with Muslims, foreshadowing the Tanzimat reforms. On the other hand, tradesmen and artisans generally rejected the fez.

Initially a symbol of Ottoman modernity, the fez came to be seen as part of an "Oriental" cultural identity. In Turkey, wearing the fez was legally banned in 1925 as part of the modernizing reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In his speech attacking Ottoman dress as decadent, he condemned the fez as "the headcovering of Greeks", tarring it by association with the recent Greco-Turkish War.

The fez was initially a brimless bonnet of red, white, or black with a turban woven around. Later the turban was eliminated, the bonnet shortened, and the color fixed to red.

Etymology

The Turkish word refers to the city of Fez in Morocco, which had a monopoly on the manufacture of fez caps, which were dyed with an extract of cornel.

Military use

A young Bedouin man wearing a North African version of the fez.

A version of the fez was used as an arming cap for the 1400-1700s version of the mail armour head protector (a round metal plate or skull-cap, around which hung a curtain of mail to protect the neck and upper shoulder. The fez, presumably padded, raised up the metal plate an inch or two to provide effective protection from heavy blows. The fez could be optionally wrapped with a turban.

Fez being made in Tunisia.

The red fez with blue tassel was the standard headdress of the Turkish Army from the 1840s until the introduction of a khaki service dress and peakless sun helmet in 1910. The only significant exceptions were cavalry and some artillery units who wore a lambskin hat with coloured cloth tops. Albanian levies wore a white version of the fez. During World War I the fez was still worn by some naval reserve units and occasionally by soldiers when off duty.

The Evzones (light infantry) regiments of the Greek Army wore their own distinctive version of the fez from 1837 until World War II. It now survives in the parade uniform of the Presidential Guard in Athens.

From the late 19th century on the fez was widely adopted as the headdress of locally recruited "native" soldiers amongst the various colonial troops of the world. The French North African regiments (Zouaves, Tirailleurs, and Spahis) wore wide, red fezzes with detachable tassels of various colours. It was an off-duty affectation of the Zouaves to wear their fezzes at different angles according to the regiment; French officers of North African units during the 1930s often wore the same fez as their men, with rank insignia attached. The Libyan battalions and squadrons of the Italian colonial forces wore lower, red fezzes over white skull caps. Somali and Eritrean regiments in Italian service wore high red fezzes with coloured tufts that varied according to the unit. German askaris in East Africa wore their fezzes with khaki covers on nearly all occasions. The Belgian Force Publique in the Congo wore large and floppy red fezzes similar to those of the French Tirailleurs Senegalais and the Portuguese Companhias Indigenas. The British King's African Rifles (recruited in East Africa) wore high straight-sided fezzes in either red or black, while the West African Frontier Force wore a low red version. The Egyptian Army wore the classic Turkish model until 1950. The West India Regiment of the British Army wore a fez as part of its Zouave-style full dress until this unit was disbanded in 1928. The tradition is continued in the full dress of the band of the Barbados Regiment, with a white turban wrapped around the base.

While the fez was a colourful and picturesque item of uniform it was in several ways an impractical headdress. If worn without a drab cover it made the head a target for enemy fire, and it provided little protection from the sun. As a result it was increasingly relegated to parade or off-duty wear by World War II, although France's West African tirailleurs continued to wear a khaki-covered version in the field until about 1943. During the final period of colonial rule in Africa (approximately 1945 to 1962) the fez was seen only as a full-dress item in French, British, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese African units; being replaced by wide-brimmed hats or forage caps on other occasions. Colonial police forces, however, usually retained the fez as normal duty wear for indigenous personnel.

Post-colonial armies in Africa quickly discarded the fez. It is, however, still worn by the ceremonial Gardes Rouge in Senegal as part of their Spahi-style uniform, and by the Italian Bersaglieri in certain orders of dress. The Bersaglieri adopted the fez as an informal headdress through the influence of the French Zouaves, with whom they served in the Crimean War. The Italian Arditi in the First World War wore a black fez that later became a uniform of the Mussolini Fascist regime. The Spanish Regulares (formerly Moorish) Tabors stationed in the Spanish exclaves of Céuta and Melilla, in North Africa, retain a parade uniform which includes the fez and white cloaks. Filipino units organised in the early days of U.S. rule briefly wore black fezzes. The Liberian Frontier Force, although not a colonial force, wore fezzes until the 1940s.

The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar, which was recruited from Bosnia, used a red or field grey fez with Waffen SS cap insignia. Bosnian infantry regiments in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire had also been distinguished by wearing the fez until the end of World War I.

Two regiments of the Indian Army recruited from Muslim areas wore fezzes under British rule (although the turban was the nearly-universal headdress amongst Hindu and Muslim sepoys and sowars). A green fez was worn by the Bahawalpur Lancers of Pakistan as late as the 1960s.

Many volunteer Zouave regiments wore the French North African version of the fez during the American Civil War.

International use

File:Belhassen2.jpg

Tunisian Fez

Peci, worn here by Indonesian former president Suharto.

Among the Muslim aristocracy of South Asia, the fez is known as the Rumi Topi (in reference to the Persian poet Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi not being the old name for the Byzantine Empire) or Turki Topi (Turkish cap). It was a symbol of Islamic identity and showed the Indian Muslims' support for the Caliphate, headed by the Ottoman Sultan. Later, it became associated with the Muslim League, the political party which eventually created the country of Pakistan. The late veteran Pakistani politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was one of the few people in Pakistan who wore the fez until his death in 2003.

The fez is also part of the traditional clothing of Cyprus, and is still worn by several Cypriots today. Traditionally, some women wore a red fez over their heads, instead of a headscarf, whilst men a black or red cap. The fez was sometimes worn, by men, with material (similar to a wrapped keffiyeh or turban) around the base. In his 1811 journey to Cyprus, John Pinkerton describes the fez, "a red cap turned up with fur", as "the proper Greek dress". In the Karpass Peninsula, white caps are worn, a style considered to be based on ancient Cypriot Hellenic-Phoenician attire, thus preserving men's head-wear from 2700 years earlier.

The fez was introduced into the Balkans, initially during the Byzantine reign, and subsequently during the Ottoman period where various Slavs, mostly Bosniaks, started wearing the head-wear.

In Sri Lanka the fez was used as frequently by the local Muslim Sri Lankan Moor population. Despite its use declining in popularity, the fez is still used in traditional Moor marriage ceremonies.

In Indonesia, the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world, fez is a part of the local culture itself. The fez is called "Peci" in Indonesian. The Peci is black in colour with a more ellipse shape and sometimes decorated with embroideries. Malay men in Malaysia, Brunei and the southern Philippines are also seen wearing it as part of the local culture, where it is better known as "Songkok". The Philippine varieties tend to be colorful and highly decorated. The peci is used in various ceremonies mostly religious and also in formal occasions by government officials.

A variation of a black soft fez was used by Italian blackshirts under the Fascist regime. This was in imitation of the red soft fez still worn by bersaglieri units.

In Libya, a soft black fez, called the checheya, is worn by the rural population with or without a long tassel. The Libyan leader Mu'ammar Gaddafi is often seen in it.

In tourist hotels in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, porters and bellhops often wear a fez to provide local colour for visitors.

In the last era of the Ottoman Empire, a purple fez was used as a symbol of revolt by eshkiyas (bandits).

In Western popular culture

In the Western world, the fez occasionally serves as a symbol of relaxation. In cartoons, characters are shown wearing a fez often while lying in a hammock on vacation or just relaxing after a hard day of work. This curious imagery may be a throwback to the late 19th century English practice of men wearing a loose fitting smoking jacket and braided fez-like smoking cap when relaxing informally in the evenings. Punch cartoons of the period 1875-90 frequently portray middle-class male figures dressed in this fashion. This practice is called "wearing mufti" and came from the habit of British officers and public servants wearing what was then Indian dress in the privacy of their homes. The dress was more comfortable in the Indian climate and created a sense of ease and relaxation such that the clothing, not unlike that of an Islamic scholar or mufti, came into the English language as a word meaning 'out of uniform' or undress.

• American comedian/radio personality Dennis Miller occasionally wears a DMZ fez while making televised or online appearances.
• The British comedian/magician Tommy Cooper always wore a red Fez during his act.
• Victor Mature wore a fez in his role as Dr. Omar in Josef Von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture (1942).
• Laurel and Hardy wore fezzes in their film Sons of the Desert, and so the members of the international fraternal organization named after the film wear fezzes in tribute.
• Morroco Mole, the sidekick to Secret Squirrel wears a fez.
• The Shriners are notable for wearing fezzes.
• During the ending credits for The Ren & Stimpy Show, Ren and Stimpy can both be seen wearing Fezzes in the background illustration.
• Aladdin and his pet monkey Abu both wear fezzes in the animated Disney film Aladdin.
• Matt Groening's characters Akbar and Jeff wear fezzes. Furthermore, the character Grampa Simpson wears a fez, allegedly once worn by Napoleon, in The Simpsons episode "Old Money".
• In the Austin Powers movie series, evil henchman Mustafa (played by Will Ferrell) wears a fez and sunglasses.
• In the video-game Team Fortress 2, the Spy class can wear an item called a "Familiar Fez" (actually a combination of a fez and sunglasses, apparently a reference to Mustafa from Austin Powers.)
• Fans of the English pop group Madness wear fezzes to their concerts. This fashion is taken from Madness' saxophonist Lee Thompson wearing the hat in the group's video for their song Night Boat to Cairo.
• Steely Dan closes Side I of their 1976 album The Royal Scam with "The Fez", a song which uses the word "fez" as a euphemism for a condom, in what is believed to be one of the first songs dealing with "safe sex"
• In the Doctor Who episode "The Big Bang", the Eleventh Doctor, played by Matt Smith dons a fez, proclaiming that "I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool." It is then blown up by River Song. He and a young Kazran Sardick also wear fezzes in "A Christmas Carol". The Doctor includes a fez in his list of things he needs to help President Nixon in "The Impossible Astronaut". Even earlier in Doctor Who the Seventh Doctor wore a fez briefly in the serial "Silver Nemesis"

See also

• Songkok/Peci - A similar cap possibly related to the fez, worn mainly by Muslim men in southeast Asia
• Turban
• Keffiyeh
• Taqiyah (cap)
• Shriners
• Moorish Science Temple of America
• Turkish cap
• Doctor Who