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It’s a commonly perpetuated myth that soft pompoms were originally sewn onto the top of sailors’ caps to protect crew members from bumping their heads below deck. But there’s actually an even simpler reason. According to France’s National Maritime Museum, pompoms were added as a way to stylishly conceal an unsightly loose thread left behind at the end of the beret-weaving process. In the mid-19th century, French naval authorities found the dangling wool thread to be rather ugly, so they instructed sailors to create and graft a red pompom to the top of their bachi (which is maritime slang for a flat sailor’s cap akin to a beret or bonnet).
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It's a factColor-coded hard hats identify types of workers on a construction site. Generally, white hats are for supervisors, yellow for general workers, blue for technicians, brown for welders, green for safety inspectors, red for fire marshals, orange for those who require high visibility, and gray for visitors.
The typical color of French naval pompoms is red, though the exact reason for that choice is difficult to pin down. One commonly repeated — though possibly apocryphal — theory relates to a purported incident in the late 1800s, in which a sailor violently hit his head when coming to attention during an inauguration ceremony for a bridge in Brest. As the story goes, French Empress Eugénie de Montijo, the wife of Napoleon III, offered her assistance by handing the sailor her handkerchief, which turned red with blood. Today, the traditional red-colored pompom remains a standard component of official French naval dress, perhaps serving as a salute to this fabled event.
Pompoms have also served an important decorative purpose for many military groups in Europe. Hungarian hussars (cavalry regiments) wore pompoms, or sometimes feathers, atop a hat called a shako: a tall, tapered, cylindrical cap that often includes a visor. These puffy embellishments also adorned the caps of soldiers in both the Napoleonic and Russian infantries of the early 19th century, with different colors signifying various roles. But according to archaeological evidence, the earliest example of people wearing a small ball on their hat dates way back to the Viking Age around 800 to 1050 CE. In 1904, a bronze statue was uncovered depicting a figure — possibly the Norse god Freyr — donning a pointed hat with a round orb at the very top.
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A chef's hat is called a toque.
Two of Napoleon’s hats sold for more than $2 million.
Napoleon Bonaparte is known for wearing a bicorne hat, and he’s said to have owned around 120 throughout his life. The French emperor typically kept a set of 12 of the hats with him at all times, and one was even placed in his coffin before his entombment. Today, it’s believed that 16 to 20 of those hats are still in existence, all of which boast an incredibly high value for collectors. In 2014, one of Napoleon’s bicorne hats sold to an anonymous buyer for a staggering €1,884,000 ($2,348,594 USD). Then in 2023, a black beaver felt hat worn by the emperor sometime between 1806 and 1815 sold at auction for €1,932,000 ($2,114,284 USD), shattering the estimated hammer price of €600,000 to €800,000. Four or five of Napoleon’s hats now reside in private collections, while the rest are in the possession of the French government and various museums.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism Media, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
