In Hebrew, a bucket hat is called a “guffy hat”/”dumb hat”
Sometimes it can be a bit annoying calling your favorite hat “guffy”, but we’re pretty certain it got its name way before guffy was a guffy.
The word “guffy” in Hebrew is pronounced “tembel”. This word originated in the Turkish language, and it meant “lazy”.
Another theory is that its name was fixed because it was used by the Templars, and in Arab pronunciation the P is replaced with a B.
Another theory connects its name to the word “dumbbell” in the English language, because of its shape resembling a bell, and the word was dismembered into 2 – dumb and bell.
Tembel or not, this hat has become a synonym icon for the Israeli Sabar.
They started making it here in the mid 30’s, when many of the settlers, Palmach soldiers and Hebrew workers were glad to wear it because it was light on the head, it covered the head and the neck, light weighted and was designed in a way that it was easy to fold into your pants pocket.
The nostalgic hats were sewed up by ATA.
During 2017 the NY Moma showed a new exhibition and the “Tembel hat” was proudly shown as a timeless cultural icon.
There were 111 fashionable iconic items that were presented from different cultures all around the world, representing cultural history that have designed our modern lives.
The exhibition is called : “items – clothes and accessories that impacted the world during the 20 and 21st centuries and that are relevant till today”, and luckily for us, the fashion specialist and querier Yaara Keidar is responsible for having our Tembel amongst the 111 items.
Like most good things, this was unplanned as well – Yaara met one of the exhibition curators, who was simply asking – “is fashion modern?”
Yaara approached us, and after a long research, we managed to locate an original hat from the 50’s, and it was sent to NY.
At the Moma they named it “Bucket hat”..and for me it was a great excuse to travel to NY and attend the opening. This was a very exciting event..
“when I arrived to the Moma I noticed that the hat was displayed backwards – that its inner side and the ATA label were facing outwards instead of inwards..i wasn’t sure if this was intended, but I didn’t even think to comment about this to anyone…in any case – an ATA label at the Moma is a delightful thing!”
Our Tembel at ATA, is very similar to the original one, and based on its original shape. On top of that, we have developed another hat named “Pola”.
If the late David Ben Gurion was ATA’s presenter, the least we could do is give his wife Pola a hat named after her…
Have a wonderful weekend,
Regards,
Yael
*I allowed myself to be inspired for parts of this text by Kerry Rubinsteins’s “Tembel – but ahead of you” published at YNET.
