It seems to be a recurring image in cartoons*: a man is sitting at home, relaxing in a recliner. He has a drink in one hand, maybe a cigarette in the other. He is probably wearing a smoking jacket or robe. And a fez.
All I associate fezes with are Morrocans and Shriners. The former admits of no apparent link to “man at leisure.” I suppose I can see an attenuated connection with the latter, in the sense of “man relaxes after work by going to the Shriner’s lodge for a drink, where he will wear his fez,” but the cartoons I’m thinking of are always in the character’s home, not a social lodge. Thematically, these cartoons tend to imply a '50s-era feel, which again may circle back to the Shriner’s connection (I assume the '50s was the peak of per capita enrollment in social lodges), but it still doesn’t explain why the fez and not, say, Elks Lodge antlers or Mason’s aprons.
So when, how, and why did “fez” come to equal “relaxing”? Did men in the '50s really wear fezes around the house when relaxing?
(*Examples off the top of my head: “Ren and Stimpy,” at least one recent episode of “Family Guy,” a non-specific recollection of “New Yorker” and “Mad Magazine” cartoons, Google image searches for “cartoon fez,” among others.)
This site suggests the smoking cap was popular in the mid-19C.
It suggests that the cap was worn for warmth (and was something a fiance might embroider for her husband to be) but I have a recollection they were also worn, with smoking jackets, to stop the hair and clothes smelling too bad in days when cleaning was less, um, rigorous than it is today.
The fez is a short step/variation of the smoking cap, ISTM.
The Swedish Toy Car and Liquor Society (among its members are Colin Powell (although he thinks he’s an honorary member of a club for collectors of old Volvo cars) and Bud Grace).
I associate it with “generally overweight and comfortable old guys and Turks”. Major Hoople, as RealityChuck notes, wore one (he was the first to come to mind). Mister Magoo wore one. Sidney Greenstreet wore one in Casablanca. All old comfortable guys who clearly had no fashion sense (except maybe Greenstreet). Morocco Mole wore one in the Secret Squirrel cartoon – but he was clearly supposed to be a Mediterranean type. From Morocco, one assumed. The old guy Indy and his father “liberate” the car from in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade wore one – and he was clearly Middle Eastern. Heck, Saleh wore one in that film, too. All foreign types. Then, of course, there are the Shriners.
I couldn’t imagine anyone I knew wearing one.
Because a brimless hat like a fez or a tarboush is far more informal than a brimmed hat, and is appropriate to wear indoors in a way that a top hat or slouch hat would not be, and they are “classier” than a flat cap.
I have one that I am modifying for my steampunk persona, by adding a little chimney, a pressure gauge, and a propellor. I believe a chin strap may be needed to keep it from flying off without me.
And for those too young to remember Secret Squirrel, Morocco Mole talked like Peter Lorre. But then, if you’re not familiar with Secret Squirrel, you might not know Peter Lorre. Maybe Boo Berry?
Noel Prosequi pretty much covered it, along with various other contributions adding to it. I haven’t much to add except that this was part of the genesis of the English term “mufti.” Many of those 19th-century British were engaged in occupying Egypt and gaining control of the Suez Canal. Whilst there, to relax in off-duty hours, they took up smoking pipes and cigars like any proper British gentlemen, and their relaxwear with which to outfit this activity included the aforementioned smoking cap/fez, along with a long smoking-jacket to protect their clothes from smoke odors, and slippers.
This ensemble so resembled the robed/capped/slippered attire of certain Islamic clerics that it came to be called “mufti” after a type of Islamic cleric—one whose specialty is giving informed answers to questions on points of Islamic law and jurisprudence (i.e., the responsa texts known as fatwá—a legal technical term that is not synonymous with ‘Islamist death sentence’).
It is not obvious, perhaps, that the words mufti and fatwa are related—but they both derive from the IV stem of the Arabic root f-t-w, meaning ‘to give a formal legal opinion’.
I am just happy for the company that finally got their Google ad displayed on the bottom of the page because someone finally mentioned the word “fez” in a post!
*Fezzes by D. Turin
Your number one fez supplier and your fez accessories www.dturin.com *
I don’t know about D. Turin being my “number one fez supplier.” He is going to have a hard time unseating my current fez supplier. Fez accessories? Eh, he has a chance to crack my top 5, I am not too happy with my current fez accessory guy.
Could it have something to do with the fact that a fez doesn’t have a brim, so you can wear it while sitting back in an armchair? With most hats, the brim would interfere with you being able to lie back.
I know! It’s so hard to find good fez accessories nowadays. My fez’s rearview mirror cracked in the first week, the antifogging device works only if the humidity is less than 62%, and the ear-swab dispenser keeps getting jammed. :mad:
