In Leipzig, I saw a great number of people wearing berets.
Regardless of who they were, how old they were or their gender, it never gave me an awkward feeling, because you would think that in Europe, wearing such artistic hats is nothing but appropriate. But when I saw a young woman wearing a beret in China, I felt like she looked really old-fashioned or was living in the ’90s. When I saw a young man wearing a beret in an elevator at Ohio University, I felt he was a “wannabe” artist.
Am I biased, or are we putting too much meaning into an object?
A beret is a round, flat-crowned hat. Tracing the history of the beret, it actually has nothing to do with either fashion or art.
In the 15th century in southwestern France, the shepherds in Gascony started to weave round, soft hats from brown wool to block the sun and the rain. Because such headgear had no brims, wind could not blow them off. The shepherds also used them to wipe their sweat or as cushions to sit on when they were tired.
The Gascons’ invention was first accepted by their neighbors, the shepherds in Basque country. Basque country is at the border of France and Spain and is comparatively more open than Gascony. Travelers to Basque discovered this unique hat style and named it “the Basque-style beret.”
Soon, this kind of hat spread throughout France and became a fashion trend. Shepherds, peasants, workers and students all loved to wear berets. Then the French army started to adopt it in its uniform. Gradually, berets — along with bread, wine and perfume — became a symbol of France and the French people.
During World War II, many French wore berets to show their spirit as a nation.
I suppose in the beginning, berets did not gain an artistic label because artists loved to wear them. Rather, it was because the French were all wearing berets, and the artists had better chances to appear on the world stage; people remember those images and connect them.
When the beret crossed lands and oceans, it became a symbol of fashion in China and one of art in the United States. But do we have to put a certain symbol on us to claim which group we belong to?
From another perspective, have we been injecting too many definitions into the beret and using them to read other people? After all, it’s just an innocent hat!
Then I realized that if I know what kind of person I am, it’s less likely for me to feel insecure. I know I’m an art lover, but I don’t have to put a beret on my head to prove that I know art. Similarly, I don’t have to push myself as far as possible away from berets to prove that I’m not a show-off. At the end of the day, it is what suits me that matters more.
As for the crowd’s tinted view, let it be.
Bingxin “Sophia” Huang is a master’s student at Ohio University who is studying at the University of Leipzig this semester and a columnist for The Post. Send her your thoughts at bh586611@ohiou.edu.
