Fez

The fez (Turkish: fes, plural fezzes or fezes, from Arabic Faas " فاس ", the main town of Morocco before 1927), as well as its equivalent, the tarboosh (Arabic: طربوش‎‎, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [tˤɑɾˈbuːʃ], ALA-LC: ṭarbūsh), is a felt headdress of two types: either in the shape of a truncated cone made of red felt, or a short cylinder made of kilim fabric, both usually with a tassel attached to the top. The tarboosh and the modern fez, which is similar, owe much of their development and popularity to the Ottoman era.

The fez was introduced into the Balkans, initially during the Byzantine reign, and subsequently during the Ottoman period where various Slavs, mostly Bosniaks and Serbs, started wearing the head-wear.

The fez is a part of the traditional clothing of Cyprus, and is still worn by some Cypriots today. Traditionally, women wore a red fez over their heads, instead of a headscarf, while men wore a black or red cap. The fez was sometimes worn by men with material (similar to a wrapped keffiyeh or turban) around the base. In his 1811 journey to Cyprus, John Pinkerton describes the fez, "a red cap turned up with fur", as "the proper Greek dress". In the Karpass Peninsula, white caps are worn, a style considered to be based on ancient Cypriot Hellenic-Phoenician attire, thus preserving men's head-wear from 2,700 years earlier.

In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire suppressed the Janissaries and began sweeping reforms of the military. His modernized military adopted Western style uniforms and, as headdresses, the fez with a cloth wrapped around it. In 1829 the Sultan ordered his civil officials to wear the plain fez, and also banned the wearing of turbans. The intention was to coerce the populace at large to update to the fez, and the plan was successful. This was a radically egalitarian measure, which replaced the elaborate sumptuary laws that signaled rank, religion, and occupation, allowing prosperous non-Muslims to express their wealth in competitions with Muslims, foreshadowing the Tanzimat reforms. Although tradesmen and artisans generally rejected the fez, it became a symbol of modernity throughout the Near East, inspiring similar decrees in other nations (such as Iran in 1873).

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