I have come across some very interesting articles on the web about the origins of the so called "Basque béret" or, as some people have even called it, the "French béret" because it has been intimately associated with French culture. But why? Humans are into symbols of course and are always looking for tags to classify things for easy identification. Yet another rewarding task lies in the differentiation of data, in pulling facts apart in the sometimes cumbersome work of finding truth. Take the cowboy hat for example which actually comes from the Hispanic-Mexican realm of Texas and northern Mexico yet in march Anglo-American troops in the mid 1800s, take over Texas, adopt the Mexican garb and "Tejano" lifestyle and all of the sudden the image of the Mexican vaquero becomes the symbol of North America: the cowboy. And to boot they go around saying "Mexicans get out of Texas". Quite a psychotic paradox indeed but why so much cultural identification with a fucking hat? In their essence hats had a protective function just like any other garment, but while the cowboy hat has come to symbolize male chauvinistic arrogance of plebeian nature, the béret became the accessory of coolness as in the case of perhaps the most popular revolutionary of our times, Ernesto Guevara from Argentina known to the world as "El Che". And both have similar origins too, namely as the favorite headdress of herders. While the origins of the cowboy hat might be in Spain, perhaps in Castile, the béret has its cradle on the northern slopes of the western Pyrenees in a region called Béarn.
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