Biography of french artists hat
Famous french paintings...
A French icon: the beret
Is there any fashion accessory as French as the beret? Heidi Fuller-Love explains the history behind France’s favourite hat…
Popular French legend has it that Noah discovered the beret.
Biography of french artists hat
According to myth, he was cleaning the Ark and discovered a mesh of wool that had been trodden to felt by a hundred hooves. Et voilà: the beret, derived from the Latin birretum (meaning ‘a cap’), was born.
Historians would dispute this biblical fable, but they would not deny that the beret goes back a long way: the ancient Greeks wore round, flat hats that looked similar and even the Romans had a flat cap called a beretino.
The first berets in France were worn by Béarnais shepherds in the Middle Ages.
These canny Pyrenean mountain dwellers discovered that wool becomes water-resistant when left out in all weathers. Soon, all over the Midi-Pyrénées, shepherds were knitting themselves hats during the long winter veillées when fire flickered in the chimney and the wo