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Unknown Maker, Turkish

Man's hat (fez)

Description

Maker

Unknown Maker, Turkish

Culture

Turkish

Title

Man's hat (fez)

Year

late 1800s

Medium

  • wool,
  • straw,
  • leather; felted,
  • silk tassel

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • wool,
  • straw,
  • leather; felted,
  • silk tassel

Materials

wool, straw, leather

Geography

Place Made: Turkey

Dimensions

Height: 15.2 cm (6 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Bequest of Lyra Brown Nickerson

Object Number

16.484

Type

  • Costume Accessories

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Sartorial Sanctuary
Clothing and Traditions in the Eastern Islamic World
Dec 19, 2008 – Apr 26, 2009

Label copy

Following the example of Muhammad and his companions, men in most Muslim societies have traditionally worn a head covering, especially when praying. This basic requisite has led to the adoption of a wide variety of turbans, hats, and caps-so long as they have no brim that would interfere with a worshipper’s forehead touching the ground during prayer. Some caps might serve as a base for the turban, though men also wear them alone, offering their decoration as a display of devotion and dedication. Mirrors, for example, on the Middle Eastern prayer cap here might be seen to reflect God’s glory and to deflect the evil eye, while the ritual of embroidering the text on the Iranian dervish cap is said to aid in the attainment of salvation.

Other hats, differing in shape from the typical rounded cap, reveal additional layers of meaning related to history and geography. The turban form of the Javanese batik head covering shows an indigenous fabric fashioned to announce the wearer’s faith while keeping him relatively comfortable in a typically humid environment. The Turkish fez, originally imported from North Africa, has a complicated political history: a symbol of Turkish nationalism and modernization under Sultan Mahmud II around 1826, when it largely replaced the turban, it changed to one of Islamic orthodoxy under Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who outlawed it in 1925 in favor of Western varieties of hat.

Use & Feedback

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Unknown Maker, Turkish
Man's hat (fez), late 1800s
Wool, straw, leather; felted, silk tassel
Height: 15.2 cm (6 inches)
Bequest of Lyra Brown Nickerson 16.484

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Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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