The Persian's Hat
I wanted to make a post about this for a while because of some misconceptions circulating surrounding the Persian’s hat. This post is not intended as a call out, but rather as an educational resource. I hope that by making the information more accessible, it will encourage people to look deeper into the histories and cultures depicted in Phantom and stop some of the orientalism unknowingly perpetuated in the fandom as a result.
In the book, the Persian is described as wearing an astrakhan cap, which is accurate to the time period and Persian culture that Leroux was referencing. From 1812 it was mandatory for Persian officials as well, and various styles of it were seen throughout the Qajar era. It also makes sense that the Persian would continue to wear it in France, as it was acceptable in dress codes of the time for foreigners to replace the European top hat with the headwear from their country.
(Illustration of Raoul and the Persian by André Castaigne from 1911 depicting the astrakhan cap)
(Photograph from the late 19th century of Naser al-Din Shah and his attendants wearing the astrakhan cap)
We also see the Persian depicted in art, even in official illustrated editions of the book, wearing a red fez:
(Illustration of Raoul and the Persian by Greg Hildebrandt from 1990 depicting the red fez)
This is where the misconceptions come in. The red fez (or tarboush) is a hat that was worn in the Ottoman empire during the 19th century and was a political and cultural signifier of nationalism and loyalty to the Ottoman empire. Persian officials did not wear the red fez, as they had their own headwear (the kolah/astrakhan cap), and the Persian empire and Ottoman empire were rivals at the time. (However, similar styles of hat to the "fez" style have been worn in Persia at different time periods). Depictions of the Persian from POTO in a fez have unfortunately suffered from orientalism that conflates Persian, Arab, and Turkish culture and history.
This is still an issue in modern research. This book chapter from 2021 ("Modernism and the Politics of Dress" from Social Histories in Iran) still reports this incorrectly, claiming that the fez was made part of Iran's official dress in 1873:
However, if you follow the sources that it cited, it says "fez-like:"
And this article in turn cites this, which again talks about a similar hat to the fez, but which is not the fez, simply comparing the dress reform to those taking place in the Ottoman empire:
Unfortunately, this is where the trail ended for me because the source it cited was a memoir by Abdollah Mostowfi (The Administrative and Social History of the Qajar Period):
At the time this book was written, the source still hadn't been translated into English. Today there is an English translation, but it has no digitized version, a hardcopy of the book costs over 100$, and the closest physical copy I could find in a library was a 3 hour drive away at a university.
If you'd like to learn more, Encyclopaedia Iranica is a great resource for anglophone content on Persian history. This page has a detailed breakdown of the clothing worn in the Qajar era and citations for further research.
It also has visual references, such as photographs and fashion plates that can help artists looking for reference photos of the clothing of the time. (They recently updated their site layout and this has led to the images not displaying properly, but you can find them all on the Wayback Machine under the images/tables tab.)
