Fez (hat)
cone-shaped cap with a flat crown
The fez (Turkish: fes, Ottoman Turkish: فس, romanized: fes), also called tarboosh/tarboush (Arabic: طربوش, romanized: ṭarbūsh), is a felt headdress in the shape of a short, cylindrical, peakless hat, usually red, typically with a black tassel attached to the top. The name "fez" may refer to the Moroccan city of Fez, where the dye to color the hat was extracted from crimson berries. However, its origins are disputed.
The modern fez owes much of its popularity to the Ottoman era. It became a symbol of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century. In 1827, Mahmud II mandated its use as a modern headdress for his new army, the Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediye (English: The Modern Soldiers of Mahmood/Muhammad) The decision was inspired by the Ottoman naval command, who had previously returned from the Maghreb having embraced the style. In 1829, Mahmud issued new regulations mandating the use of the fez by all civil and religious officials. The intention was to replace the turban, which acted as a marker of identity and so divided rather than unified the population. A century later, in 1925, the fez was outlawed in Turkey as part of Atatürk's reforms. Since then, it has not been a part of Turkish men's clothing.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Fez (hat)” as cone-shaped cap with a flat crown. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q189862. The Library of Congress control number is sh96008836. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1827, 1829 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fez (hat)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.