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The fez is a particular style of hat that originated from the city of Fez in Morocco. The fez is also known as the tarboosh ( Persian sar-boosh for "head cover") and checheya.

The modern fez is made of felt, shaped roughtly like a canister or truncated cone, tapering slightly towards the top where there is a tassle fixed to the middle of the flat top. This sort of fez is often worn by members of the Shriners fraternal organization and also became the trademark of British entertainer Tommy Cooper.

About AD 980, the haj was interrupted, and the pilgrimages of those living west of the Nile were directed to Fez as to the Holy City. A manufacturer in Fez supplied a new style of headress that started to be widely used by the students of a particular school. The hat became a mark of intelligence, and came to worn all along the northern shores of Africa. This original form, still worn in Tunisia, Tripoli and Morocco, are two or three times longer than the ones most people think of, and have much longer and heavier silk tassels.

In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was looking to break with tradition and update the official dress of the empire's civil service. He originally looked at a three-cornered hat of European descent, but his advisors pointed out that the three corners represented the holy trinity and he reconsidered. A shipment of fezzes had recently arrived from Tunisia, so they were selected instead. It was considered the special badge of a Turkish subject and all, even if not a Moslem, were obliged to wear it. Women wore fezzes as well, but the women's were smaller and without tassels. The transition to the fez was resisted for some time, but by the end of the century Turkey was swept up by a "Europeanization" wave and the fez became a loved symbol of nationality.

Fez formerly had a monopoly on the manufacture of the hat because it controlled the juice of the berry used to color them. However the discovery of synthetic anilineAniline phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic chemical compound which is a primary aromatic amine consisting of a benzene ring and an amino group. The chemical structure of aniline is shown at the right. It is a liquid at room temperature. Synthesis A dyeA dye can generally be described as a coloured substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is usually used as an aqueous solution and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fibre. In contrs in the 19th centuryAlternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical ( 18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801- 1900. Events The Little Ice Age ended allowed the manufacture to spread to FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east and AustriaAustria is a landlocked country in Central Europe, a federation of nine states. Austria is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the. At the beginning of the 20th century19th century 20th century 21st century more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901- 2000 in the sense of the Gre Austria was the main center of the fez industry. The countries where the fezzes were extensively worn did not have a single fez manufacturing plant.