A Shallow Beret

I recently came across an article in Piecework magazine called "The History of the Beret."

The Piecework article may be read here.

The article, unsurprisingly, is short, which is fine. But the article is also shallow. The author claims that "The beret-style hat has its roots in the Basque region straddling the French-Spanish border." I have not yet explored the articles she cites in support of this statement (though that would be easy to do as all appear on the Internet and the URLs are given). But the Basque country is not the only place where beret-shaped hats have been worn, and may not be the place where they were worn first. Wikipedia has a short article about a cap called a kausia, which supposedly worn by the kings of Macedonia in antiquity "as part of the royal costume", and supposedly was worn by Alexander the Great and his Companions. I blogged about this hat, which may or may not date to antiquity, here.

Kudos to the author of the Piecework article for attempting to pin down some of the latter-day history of the beret, though! It's hard to document when a garment or other artifact originated or how long it's been around, as anyone aware of the "history" of a cord-making device called a lucet can tell you.