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Beret

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Black beret

A beret (UK: ["bE-reI], US: [b@-"reI]; SAMPA) is a soft round cap with a flat crown which is worn by both men and women. The cap fits snugly around the head, and the soft crown can be shaped in a variety of ways – it is commonly pushed to one side. Berets were originally worn by Basque peasants, and were knitted from wool. Today berets are normally made from wool felt.

Berets are associated with a variety of different people. A beret completes the stereotypical images of Frenchmen (even though berets are fairly rare in France nowadays) or French peasants; artists, painters and intellectuals. It also was the stereotypical headgear of film directors until it was replaced in the public eye with the baseball cap in the 1980s.

Che Guevara is wearing a beret in the iconic photograph taken by Alberto Korda.

Berets are also worn by some scout groups.

Berets in the military

Berets are a part of certain military uniforms, such as those of the British Armed Forces and the United States Army. Blue berets are worn by United Nations Peacekeeping forces.

United Kingdom

The British Army were the first to adopt modern-style berets as part of their uniform. In 1918, the French 70th Chasseurs Alpins were training with the British Tank Corps. The Chasseurs Alpins wore a distinctive large beret and Major-General Sir Hugh Elles, the TC's Colonel, realised that the beret would be practical headwear for his tank crews. He thought, however, that the Chasseur beret was "too sloppy" and the Basque style beret of the French tank crews was "too skimpy", so a compromise based on the Scottish Tam O'Shanter was designed and submitted for the approval of George V in November 1923. It was adopted in March 1924.

Today, every British military unit wears a beret, with the exception of Scottish and Irish infantry regiments, who wear the Tam O'Shanter and the Corbeen respectively. Many of these berets are in distinctive colours and all are worn with the cap badge of the service, regiment or corps.

The colours are as follows:

The Royal Tank Regiment, Parachute Regiment and SAS never wear any other form of uniform headgear except the beret (i.e. they do not wear peaked caps). Troops from other services, regiments or corps on attachment to units with distinctive coloured berets often wear those berets (with their own cap badge). Colonels, brigadiers and generals usually continue to wear the beret of the regiment or corps to which they used to belong with the cap badge distinctive to their rank. The Royal Highland Fusiliers, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and Royal Welch Fusiliers wear a coloured feather hackle on the beret.

United States

The United States Army Special Forces are generally known as "green berets" for the color of their headgear. Other US Army units can also be distinguished by the color of their headgear, as follows:

Berets were originally worn only by elite units of the US Army. Hence, there was controversy when in 2001 the United States Army adopted the black beret, previously reserved for the Rangers, as standard headgear for all army units. The Rangers are now distinguished by brown berets.

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