#DETAILS#
Cap 100% Virgin Wool.
Tight 3/3 rib knitting
Hot & Resistant.
One size fits all.
Different personnel number for each model. Hand-stamped number on an aluminium plate
MILITARY INSPIRATION (Marine Commando Cap)
French made. Knitted in GUIDEL in Morbihan
Figures struck on a tin plate....In Prison, the clothes make the monk or rather refers to the Truand and the length of his sentence.
In the 20th century, the convict's jacket was a red madder's jacket without buttons or collars. Sometimes a small straight collar and bone pimples are tolerated.
The haircut (cap) marks the time of atonement. Those sentenced to life imprisonment wear a green cap; before 1830, they were also marked with a red iron on their shoulders with the letters TP, Travaux Perpétuité.
The red cap is the general mark of those sentenced on time, but for some it is only a transitional colour. From the red cap, they quickly switch to the green cap, which they often only get rid of at the foot of the scaffold. Sometimes, a change of commissioner at the head of the prison leads to a new variety of clothing.
"The Last Exile, History of Prisons and Convicts".
Convicts of the Prison
The convicts arrived chained by the neck, in groups of 24, the cords or chainplates, on racks.
When they arrived, they were sheared, wearing a red wool gown, a red wool vest, a white canvas shirt, yellow canvas pants and a pair of sockless shoes.
They also wore a wool cap, the colour of which indicated the length of the sentence: the red cap for those convicted on time and the green cap for those convicted of life.
A tin plate, worn on the gown, vest and cap, indicated the convicted person's number. Those who worked outside also received a grey wool pea jacket.
The plate fixed on the cap, the only metal part of this set, is normally made of White Iron. Sometimes, convicts replace it with a serrated hardened steel plate that is a very efficient saw.
Upon his arrival, the convict receives what will become his most faithful companion: THE CHAIN. The "chaloupier" in charge of the shoe fixes at the ankle of the condemned man a shackle closed by a job to which the chain, generally one and a half metres long, formed by 18 links and seven kilos heavy, is attached.
the formation of "couples" is one of the painful measures of prison. Each new convict must be "mated" with an old one for a period of three years.
This mating is odious: there is no reason for a salutary penalty. It forces an unfortunate person who would feel remorse in isolation, in the most immediate contact with a perverse man who is jaded about all punishments.
He must eat, work, lie down beside him; he must be his accomplice, listen to his most obscene speeches, his most unholy blasphemies. He has to corrupt himself as much as he does to live in unison. If he persists in resisting this fatal influence, he often becomes the victim of the miserable man to whom he is mated.
The RED Cap, A HISTORY
Commander Jacques-Yves COUSTEAU constantly wore this RED Cap as a sign of recognition and in tribute to the convicts of Toulon who were designated to test the first divers.
Indeed, for fear of risks, the suits were initially tried by prisoners. In order to differentiate them from other men on ports and ships, they were made to wear red caps.
