No hat has been officially banned by a government more often than the fez. The Ottoman Empire mandated its adoption in 1826. The Turkish Republic banned it in 1925. Morocco kept it as a symbol of national identity through colonisation and independence. The fez is more politically loaded per centimetre of felt than almost any other hat in history -- and its story is the story of modernisation, identity, and who gets to decide what a head covering means.
What the Fez Looks Like
The fez is a truncated conical hat -- wider at the top, narrowing toward the base -- made from red felt, with a flat crown and a black tassel attached at the center of the top. Its height is typically 10-14 cm; it has no brim. The color is almost invariably red (crimson), though it may appear in burgundy or darker red shades. The tassel hangs to one side from a silk or rayon cord attachment at the center of the crown.
The Moroccan fez (tarboush or chechia in North African usage) is slightly different from the Turkish/Ottoman version: the Moroccan fez is often shorter with a harder, stiffer felt, while the Turkish version historically had a more cylindrical shape. Both share the red colour and tassel as defining characteristics.
Origins: Where the Fez Actually Came From
The origin of the fez is disputed, with competing claims from Morocco, Greece (the town of Yioura), and Tunis. The most widely accepted scholarly position is that the fez as a widely worn form was significantly promoted through North African manufacture (particularly in Fez, Morocco, which lent its name to the hat) and became standardised in Ottoman administrative use through the 18th and early 19th centuries.
The felt for quality fezzes was traditionally made in specific manufacturing centres -- Fez in Morocco, and later Semlin (modern Serbia) and other European centres -- because the felting technique and dye sources (primarily kermes and later synthetic dyes for the characteristic red) required specific craft skills and materials. The tassel was traditionally silk, distinguishing quality fezzes from lower-quality versions.
The Ottoman Mandate: 1826
The fez's most consequential historical moment was Sultan Mahmud II's Tanzimat reform decree of 1826, which banned the turban for government officials and military personnel and mandated the fez as the replacement head covering. The political logic: the turban was associated with the traditional Islamic establishment and military structures that Mahmud was dismantling as part of his modernisation program. The fez -- visually distinct from the turban, associated with a more urban and international Ottoman context -- signalled a reformed, modern state apparatus.
The decree was bitterly contested. Religious conservatives saw it as an abandonment of Islamic headwear traditions; some traditionalists refused compliance and faced punishment. The fez became, paradoxically, the symbol of Ottoman modernisation -- a sign of reform rather than of tradition.
The Turkish Republic Ban: 1925
Less than a century after the Ottomans mandated the fez as a symbol of modernisation, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk banned it in 1925 as part of the Turkish Republic's programme of Western-oriented reform. The Hat Reform Law of 1925 required Turkish men to wear Western-style brimmed hats and explicitly banned the fez. Atatürk's argument was that the fez itself had become a symbol of the Ottoman order he was dismantling -- the hat that had once represented modernisation now represented the ancien régime.
The ban was enforced vigorously; men who refused to comply faced imprisonment. The fez disappeared from Turkish public life within years. This sequence -- mandated in 1826, banned in 1925 -- makes the fez unique in hat history: the same object serving as a symbol of modernisation in one political context and a symbol of reactionary tradition in the next.
The Fez in Morocco and North Africa
In Morocco, the fez retained a different trajectory. Under French and Spanish colonial pressure from the late 19th century through independence in 1956, the fez became a marker of Moroccan and Islamic identity against colonial European dress codes. Wearing the fez was a cultural resistance act as well as a traditional practice. Post-independence, the fez remains part of formal Moroccan ceremonial and traditional dress -- it appears at official state occasions, in religious ceremony, and is worn as a mark of cultural identity. The King of Morocco appears in the fez at formal events.
The Fez in Contemporary Context
The fez today exists in several concurrent contexts:
- Moroccan formal and traditional dress: genuinely worn at ceremonies, official events, and by men maintaining traditional dress practices.
- Turkish cultural tourism: sold as a souvenir but not worn as everyday dress since the 1925 ban effectively removed it from Turkish daily life.
- Theatrical and costume use: the fez is a recognisable shorthand for Ottoman or North African setting in theatrical, film, and costume contexts.
- Freemasonry and fraternal organisations: the fez is worn by members of the Shriners (Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine), a North American fraternal organisation that adopted it in 1872 as an orientalist ceremonial element. This specific association gives the fez a distinct meaning in North American cultural contexts.
Explore the full history of hat styles and their origins in the Hatloom Hat and Headwear Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the fez always red?
The characteristic crimson-red colour of the fez derives from the traditional dyestuff used in its manufacture. Historical fezzes were dyed with kermes -- a scale insect that produces a deep, fast red dye -- which was the predominant red dye in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern textile production before the introduction of synthetic aniline dyes in the late 19th century. The colour became so definitively associated with the hat that when synthetic dyes replaced kermes, manufacturers produced synthetic dyes designed to replicate exactly the same shade. The red is not an arbitrary choice -- it is the colour the craft tradition established before it became conventional.
Is the tassel on a fez decorative or does it have meaning?
The tassel has both functional and symbolic history. Functionally, it provided a grip point for removing the hat and a way to hang the hat by its cord. Symbolically, in certain Ottoman ceremonial contexts, the tassel's position and length could indicate rank or status. In contemporary use, the tassel is primarily aesthetic -- it is part of the hat's defining appearance and is not used as a status indicator in the same formalised way. The custom of moving the tassel from one side to another as a ceremonial gesture exists in some fraternal organisations (the Shriners, for example) as a ritual element.
Can the fez be worn as a fashion piece today?
Outside Morocco and other North African contexts where it retains active cultural use, wearing a fez in casual Western contexts reads as costume or appropriation of a specific cultural form. It is not a fashion-neutral hat -- it carries a very specific cultural and historical identity that is not freely transferable to general wear. In Morocco and North African communities, it is genuine cultural heritage dress. In theatrical, costume, and specific ceremonial contexts (Shriners), it has established non-appropriative use. As a general fashion choice outside these contexts, the cultural specificity of the fez makes it a different proposition from, for example, wearing a fedora or a flat cap.
What is the fez called in different countries?
The hat is known by different names across the cultures that have used it: fez in English (from the Moroccan city of Fez); tarboush in Arabic (used widely across the Arab world, particularly Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon); fesi in Turkish; chechia in North African French; and kalpack in some Central Asian contexts (though this more often refers to a different hat form). The English word fez derives directly from the Moroccan city name and became the standard English term through 19th-century English contact with Ottoman and North African cultures.