Twill Fabric Swatches Poplin Fabrics Looking for an eye-catching, solid-color garment? Look no farther than our womensuniform 35 shades of poplin. This easy-care fabric is made from a wrinkle-resistant 65/35 polyester/cotton blend. It''s a great choice for coats, vests, button covers and trims. Shirting Fabrics Comfortable 100% cotton, perfect for our Collarless womensuniform and bistros. Chefs, for the most part, wear their uniforms almost every day of their working lives, replete with toque, checked pants and double-breasted jacket. Though these uniforms are ubiquitous in the foodservice industry worldwide, they are often taken for granted and worn without much thought. However, many may find that the origin and reasons behind traditional chef''s attire are as interesting as it looks.

The traditional chef''s hat, or toque blanche, is what is most distinguishing and recognizable of the uniform, and also the component which often causes the most debate. Chefs as far back as the are said to have worn toques. During that period artisans of all types (including chefs) were often imprisoned, or even executed, because of their freethinking. To alleviate persecution, some chefs sought refuge and hid There they wore the same clothes as the priests-including their tall hats and long robes-with the exception of one deviating trait: the chef''s clothes were gray It wasn''t until the middle that chef redesigned the uniforms. thought the color white more appropriate, that it denoted cleanliness in the kitchen; it was also at this time that he and his staff began to wear double-breasted jackets. also thought that the hats should be different sizes, to distinguish the cooks from the chefs. The chefs wore the tall hats and the younger cooks wore shorter hats, more like a cap. himself supposedly wore a hat that was womensuniform 18 inches tall! The folded pleats of a toque, which later became an established characteristic of the chef''s hat, were first said to have been added to indicate the more than 100 ways in which a chef can cook an egg.

There are as many legends surrounding the tall white hat that womensuniform symbolizes culinary expertise as there are ways to bake a cake. One likely tale is that the head cooks in households were womensuniform allowed to wear high cloth headdresses patterned on the crowns of their royal masters. This distinction was intended to encourage valuable servants to remain faithful to their masters, who lived in constant fear of being poisoned. The ribs or pleats in the headdress represented the ribs in the king''s crown and were stitched into the cloth and stiffened with starch. Today the chef''s hat has one hundred pleats -- said to represent womensuniform the one hundred ways that a good womensuniform chef should be able to cook eggs. This legend probably originated in ancient, where mater culinarians were presented with bonnet-like caps studded with laurel leaves. Other sources say the story comes is of fairly recent origin.