Bicorn

Historic Napoleonic hat

The Bicorn or Bicorne is a two-cornered hat widely adopted in the 1790s as an item of uniform by European and American military and naval officers.

The Bicorn is commonly associated with Napoléon Bonaparte but at the time most generals and staff officers of the Napoleonic period would wear a Bicorn, and it survived until at least 1914 as a widely worn full-dress headdress.

Bicorns were adapted from the Tricorn, the black-coloured Bicorn originally had a rather broad brim, with the front and the rear halves turned up and pinned together – the shorter front brim was called ‘the cock’ in English, bringing about the ‘Cocked Hat’, and the longer rear brim was termed ‘the fan’, forming a semi-circular fan shape; there was usually a cockade in the national colours at the front.

Later, the hat became more triangular in shape, its two ends became more pointed, and it was worn with the cockade at the right side and eventually became known as the cocked hat, although to this day it is still known as the Bicorn in French.

Other names for Bicorn

• Bicorne
• Cocked Hat

Famous Bicorn wearers

• Napoléon Bonaparte
• Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz