Fezzy was a bear... no, wait. Fezzy was a Jacques!

Some of you may have seen the big news over at pademolay.org – the new DeMolay fez! This item is a limited edition, high quality fez of which there will only ever by 12 produced! That’s it! One dozen and their gone! Ordering information is available over at the fez news story if you’re interested. All proceeds will benefit the PA DeMolay endowment fund. However, I figured the blog would be a good place to tell you the back story how these fine pieces of fraternal headwear were made.

Last fall, at Flag Football, "Dad" David Labagh and I were having a discussion about doing something fun for Halloween for our recently formed trivia team. I guess I should probably explain that the trivia team is composed of a group of friends from the DeMolay world who go play a game show type game each week. If you were at Key Man this year you saw exactly what it is we do.

Anywho, David and I were looking at possible goofy bowling shirts for a uniform. While looking around online I stumbled across Fez-o-Rama. Fez-o-Rama is an independent maker of all things fez. They create and manufacture their own designs using only the highest quality material. In fact, the founder of Fez-o-Rama teaches fashion and clothing design in San Francisco! How cool!

I was immediately smitten. I had to have one of these awesome fezzes. I had a tough time deciding on a design, so I waited for a few months until I bought my first one, but I ordered a simple black felt fez in the meantime. I wore it to trivia for Halloween, which garnered me the nickname “The Fez.” Most people still don’t know my real name at trivia; even the staff only know me as “The Fez,” which I sort of get a kick out of!

My original Fez-o-Rama Fez was No. 45. If you want an explanation of what it stands for you’ll just have to ask me in person! My next purchase was a “Fez” fez. My girlfriend purchased this one for me as it went perfectly with my trivia nickname. My third Fez-o-Rama fez was purchased only recently when they held a sale of their Pirate fezzes in honor of “Talk Like a Pirate Day.” It just so happened that I was getting my costume ready for Knights Night Out II: A Pirate Feast (which is a joint charity even between Elizabethtown DeMolay and Cyrene Commandery No. 34 with the proceeds split 50/50 between DeMolay and the Knights Templar Eye Foundation.) I scooped up a black one just in time for the event and proudly wore it as part of my costume for the evening.

Where did the DeMolay fezzes come from though? I contacted the folks at Fez-o-Rama and told them just how much I loved their products. I knew that they did some commission work and thought to myself “Self, I wonder if they could make a DeMolay related fez for me?” DeMolays used to wear fezzes all the time, especially back in the 1930’s and 40’s. We even have several of them on display right here at Patton Campus! It seemed like a natural idea to create a new DeMolay fez for the current generation.

I sent off lots of artwork to Fez-o-rama and, lo and behold, they came back with an awesome design based upon an early version of the DeMolay logo which was then combined with a fez and moon design. It was great! I knew that we had to offer these to our members and supporters – plus it was just in time for Christmas!

After working out some of the details we settled on creating only twelve of these bad boys and making them limited edition collectables with the sales benefiting the endowment fund. Everything was all set!

That’s the story of the 2010 Limited Edition DeMolay fez. Do you want to be one of the twelve lucky people to own one of these? Head over to pademolay.org and order one today!

Keep on Jacquesing!

Frat!~”Dad” Seth Anthony