SCARFSMANSHIP
Yesterday, as part of our continuing domestic upheaval, Marie Dominique and Maria, the house-keeper, unearthed two cartons from under our bed. Marie opened one, and said “Les foulards”. Scarves. Then she opened the second. “Plus de foulards…” More scarves. She looked at me reprovingly “….de monsieur.”
Well, perhaps I do have a few too many scarves. But think of it as making up for lost time. Before I left Australia, I don’t believe I ever wore one. To do so would give rise to all sorts of unseemly speculation. Just how much was signalled by a revisionist production some years ago of Ray Lawler’s play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Instead of its three male leads, macho cutters of sugar-cane in town for their annual debauch, bursting raucously from the wings, they rose silently as a group from under the stage, posed in profile, scarves streaming, like aviators in a ‘thirties Soviet monument. There hadn’t been such a furore since Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
My prejudice against scarves didn’t survive my first European winter. Nobody in Paris put on an overcoat without adding a cosy turn or two of wool around the neck. Once the weather improved, the scarf remained in place, but adjusted for the season; one end tossed dashingly across the shoulder perhaps, or looped twice, with the ends hanging belligerently in front, the perfect accompaniment to an existential scowl. And if you also covered your mouth….well, remember Malcolm MacDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s If…?
That style, I learned from How to Tie a Scarf: 33 Styles, which Marie Dominique gave me one Christmas, is known as the Geneva. I preferred the more manly Tokyo, with two ends dangling negligently. But who knows? One day, I may lose my inhibitions sufficiently to try the Montmartre, a simple silk square knotted around the throat.
But now Inoui, the scarf boutique, have opened a branch opposite. It’s too cruel. Scarves in cashmere and silk and wool, in every colour and style you can imagine. How long can I hold out before the Toucan (235 Euros!) lures me into the grasp of its cooly disdainful vendeuses? I think we all know the answer to that
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Scarves...One cannot have too many. So many ways to wear them to add panache to any outfit:)) However, I have never found a Hermès scarf that I like enough to buy whilst my friend looks fabulous in hers...
Coming from Australia I know that of which you speak. And I succumbed to Inoui many years ago. They’re delightful - toucan or tiger and suitable for all seasons.
Judy