Very Important Pieces Series: Scarves

As I’ve written before, sometimes I feel like sharing thoughts about the really significant things in life, such as cast iron pans, shoes, or purses. Scarves may be even older than shoes, so I think we should add them to the list of Very Important Pieces. Imagine a stone-age person lucky enough to own an extra scrap of leather. It could be used as a knapsack, thrown over the shoulder for extra warmth, or tossed atop straw for bedding. Isn’t this essentially a thick scarf? Think about Roman togas. Aren’t they basically nicely draped 12-yard-long scarves? What about kilts and saris? Same thing, only neatly pleated. Men use scarves. Always have, always will. They just call them by more manly names: ascots, neck ties, pocket handkerchiefs. Sometimes, if the item is made out of warm, sturdy yarns in neutral colors, they will even fess up to owning a scarf. My history with scarves began in the 1950s, when they were small squares of colorful fabric we tied around our necks to look like girly versions of Gene Autry. Those scarves were easy to store. You could fit 20 of them in a tissue box. By the 1960s, our scarves grew into rectangles. We still tied them around our necks but now they could be fluffed into bows at our throats, or hang loose outside our coats. We started needing bigger boxes to hold them. In fact, we needed scarf drawers. I want to ask you a question. Can you write down a list of all the scarves you have, identified by color, texture, and size, without peeking? If so, you’ve either just cleaned out your closets or you are seriously OCD. Those of you who have just purged your closets and drawers using nifty organizational systems, your scarves are neatly rolled into cute little buns, each one perfectly visible, just waiting to wink at you when you open whatever you’re using as a scarf drawer. Not only that, you’ve only kept the ones you absolutely love. Right? For everyone else, do you even know how many scarves you own? My guess is you do not. I’m pretty sure there are going to be two or more scarves shoved in the back of your scarf storage unit that you have totally forgotten exist. It’s entirely possible that we each own more scarves than jeans, and a recent study says the average American woman owns eighteen pairs of jeans. So, what do you think? Would you be shocked to discover you own more than eighteen scarves? I’m telling you, scarves matter. My problem is not how many I have, or how they are stored, or even if I know what I own. My main issue is how to wear them. Will someone please tell me how the women in Indian movies manage to keep their long, flowing, silk scarves anchored perfectly on their heads while the winds howl and the rains pour down? I can’t see any bobby pins. Are they glued in place? Because every time I try to drape a scarf over my head it slips off. Not only that, how do they manage to keep their scarves draped beautifully across their necks or hanging from one shoulder? Not just movie stars, I’m talking about the Indian women pushing baby strollers up the street from where I live. Why do their scarves stay in place and mine fall on the floor? What’s the secret? I’ve ordered extra long scarves from India, beautiful dupattas, for whenever I dress up in my Indian-Hippie mashups. I leave the house with both ends hanging equally and by the time I get where I’m going, one end is dragging on the ground. How does that work? I never see other women playing with the ends of their scarves. They set the things in place and that’s that. No twiddling with the fringe, no readjusting the ties, nothing but warmth and/or beautiful accessory, whereas I remind myself of Isadora Duncan. You know, the dancer who was wearing a long scarf when she took a ride in a convertible and managed to get one end tangled in a rear wheel and strangle herself to death? Isadora was my kind of woman. Still, and in spite of all odds, I continue to emulate my betters, swathing myself in gauzy things that may or may not match what I’m wearing, striding forth as if I know what I’m doing, and fiddling with the fit once I get there. To tell you the truth, even though I have more trouble managing them than any other so-called accessories, which are really necessities, I own more scarves than shoes and purses. That’s shoes AND purses, not shoes OR purses. There’s no doubt about it, scarves take top honors in the list of really Important Pieces.