PalQ

My French relatives tell me that everytime i anything about French wearing berets that in reality no one except perhaps a few old farts wear berets anymore but now the more stylish casquettes (sp?) - i still don't see the difference. anyone enlighten me on the difference and if this is true? Merci bien en advance!

cocofromdijon

un béret :
http://www.souvenirs-paris.fr/images...-black-550.jpg

une casquette (wore by Louis de Funes)
http://www.geocities.com/cinephilia2.../casquette.jpg

une casquette now :
http://capbreizh.pneuboat.com/articles/casquette.jpg

Je vous en prie cher Pal!

cocofromdijon

Worn by.... sorry (I have the same one that I wear sometimes in winter, it was my grandfather's) and I also have a grey béret like this here
http://www.souvenirs-paris.fr/caps/beret-francais.htm

PalQ

Cher Coco: Merci bien. J'essai ecrirer francais:
Est-ce que le pluie s'arret a Dijon?
Au revoir - a bientot!

cocofromdijon

Bien sûr que la pluie s'arrête >
Actually I'm travelling between my garden (which has never been so nice with all the rain we had recently ;-) ) and the forums...

cigalechanta

Passé? No, not all. You vcan pick up French Magazines to see people wearing them, especially women. I brought three in different colors for the damp days
In the Basque country you'lll see more men wearing them. In Paris I saw a handsomely turned out man wearing one.

PalQ

And these were berets and not casquettes? Maybe the beret is making a fashion comeback!

Maribel

We,like cigalechanta, see them all the time in the Pays Basque. In Oloron Ste. Marie, (actually in Bearn) we saw the factory that makes the traditional ones.
www.beatex.fr

PalQ

Basques are French in name only of course but it's interesting to know the caps i see Basques wearing are indeed berets - thanks.

ParadiseLost

Very popular in Paris as you can see with this typical French family .
http://www.geocities.com/danahillrem...d/vacation.jpg
Regards, Walter

Christina

I don't know about the stylish casquette thing, but berets do seem somewhat old-fashioned and therefore the kinds of people I notice wearing them are unlikely to switch headgear based on fashion. Maybe I'm oblivious, but I don't notice women wearing them a lot, but I do notice men wearing them, especially in small towns more out in the country. Maybe they are old farts, I don't know. They still have them on sale in regular French stores where I shop (not ones with a lot of tourists), even in Paris, so I suspect they are selling them to someone, and not just old men (as I've seen them in the women's accessories department).

I find a wool beret very practical and a lot more stylish than a lot of cold-weather headgear, and wear one a lot myself at home in cooler weather. I have at least six of them.

SeaUrchin

I always wear one in the cold weather, it is the only style of cap I can stand to wear. I dont know if it is ever in or out, I just wear them.

sheila

Much worn in our bit of Gascony, by young men as well as old.

PalQ

Well it seems as though the death of the beret has been grossly exaggerated by my French friends!

cocofromdijon

They surely think you're talking about that old man with his béret on his head and the Gitane cigarette in his mouth! But they still exist (fortunately! )
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7...tagne-1987.jpg

PalQ

Coco: yes that's a dear picture from rural France - i've seen plenty of them on my bike trips throughout France - but i'd say saliva-soaked Gitane cigarette dangling from the mouth, barely stuck to the lips. I savor the times i've been in cafes and the beret and bleue de travail clad plump peasant with the yellow Gitane precariously dangling from his mouth type farmers belly up to the bar and grunt "une rouge" - a glass of red wine. I lament the gradual disappearance of such types, along with the rural women widows traditionally dressed in all black as a sign of perpetual mourning i've heard.

cocofromdijon

Everybody says now that French women wear only black clothes and they're not widows ;-)
Black doesn't suit me.

AnthonyGA

Berets enjoyed only a brief vogue many years ago, but one sees them occasionally, usually on young women or old men. They are nowhere near as common as folk mythology implies.

RufusTFirefly

The latest headwear fashion trend.

http://www.hatsofmeat.com/

blackduff

Berets are still wearing in the Catalonia part in France. Most of the men are older and are usually Catalans.

Casquettes are quite common too in this area.

Blackduff