Fez

The fez (more correctly ṭarbūsh from the Persian sarpūsh) is a felt headdress in the shape of a short cylindrical peakless hat, usually red, and sometimes with a tassel attached to the top. It is named after the city of its origins the Moroccan city Fez, the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco until 1927. The modern fez owes much of its popularity to the Ottoman era.Besides ṭarbūsh, the fez can also be defined in Arabic shashia (i)stanbuli. The fez is often confused with the shashia (or, with French spelling chèchia) which is derived from the Arabic شاشية , shāshiyya. The two types of headgear are quite different: the fez is stiff, conical, and raised in shape, while the shashia is soft and its shape adheres to the top of the head, in the manner of a cap. 2History 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 earlie