Fez / Fes Definition: Definitions for the Clothing & Textile Industry | ||||
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The fez, also spelled fes,
is a particular style of
hat that
originated from the city of
Fez in
Morocco. The fez is also known as the
tarboosh (Persian sar-boosh for "head
cover") and checheya.
The modern fez is made of
felt, shaped roughtly like
a canister or truncated
cone, tapering slightly
towards the top where there
is a tassel fixed to the
middle of the flat top.
This sort of fez is often
worn by members of the Shriners
fraternal organization and
also became the trademark
of British entertainer Tommy
Cooper.
About AD 980, the haj was interrupted, and the pilgrimages of those living west of the Nile were directed to Fez as to the Holy City. A manufacturer in Fez supplied a new style of headdress that started to be widely used by the students of a particular school. The hat became a mark of intelligence, and came to worn all along the northern shores of Africa. Fezzes of this original form, still worn in Tunisia, Tripoli and Morocco, are two or three times longer than the ones most people think of, and have much longer and heavier silk tassels. In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was looking to break with tradition and update the official dress of the empire's civil service. He originally looked at a three-cornered hat of European descent, but his advisors pointed out that the three corners represented the holy trinity and he reconsidered. A shipment of fezzes had recently arrived from Tunisia, so they were selected instead. It was considered the special badge of a Turkish subject and all, even if not Muslims, were obliged to wear it. Women wore fezzes as well, but the women's were smaller and without tassels. The transition to the fez was resisted for some time, but by the end of the century Turkey was swept up by a "Europeanization" wave and the fez became a loved symbol of nationality.
Fez formerly had a monopoly
on the manufacture of the
hat because it controlled
the source of the kermes
beetle used to color them.
However the discovery of
synthetic aniline
dyes
in the 19th century allowed
the manufacture to spread
to France,
Germany
and Austria. At the beginning
of the 20th century Austria
(factory in Strakonice)
was the main center of the
fez industry. The countries
where the fezzes were extensively
worn did not have a single
fez manufacturing plant.
Kemal Atatürk, leader
of the Young Turks, felt
the fez was backward and
dressed only in western,
notably British, suits and
styles. On August 30, 1925
he banned the fez in an
attempt to push Turkey into
the "modern world".
This effort was resisted
with some fury, to the point
that several riots broke
out and fezzes were seized
as illegal contraband. By
the 1930s the fez was almost
gone in Turkey when one
last attempt was made to
re-introduce it by a group
who planned to overthrow
Atat
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