Breaking: Hair Scarves Cover New York
Clip-in bows to be reevaluated by city committee
Hello s*o*m*e*bodies,
Just a short note today on an accessory boom here in NYC: The impish hair kerchief.
In the past few weeks, I’ve seen countless kerchiefs in all prints and fabrics on all kinds of girls. There are crunchy granola girls in crochet versions around Washington Square Park, bar backs in jeans and a tee wearing paisley-printed bandanas in Greenpoint, lacey cotton styles that look almost bridal on girls picnicking in McCarren Park — even the Bushwick raver girls have a take. The only comminality I see is age, mostly young women in their 20s (so far).
My sightings correlate with the warming weather and the functionality of more substantial, ear-warming hats and accessories becoming moot. The head scarf has a tweeness that makes it fitting for spring, the season of flouncy and cheerful clothes that will be too cumbersome for the heat of hard summer. But I’ve mostly seen it worn with plain clothes, nothing special, like a substitute for a baseball hat.
The kerchief takes up hair real estate where clip-in bows would have been maybe last spring or even last month. So, what does the shift from coquette and girlish hair ribbons to the demure covering mean?
The “hair bandana” (that’s the term SEO seems to like best) gives me wench, it gives me olden tymes, it says modesty and working class, it is anti-”main character energy,” and it’s not modern. It also calls to mind religious head coverings seen across the world and throughout history: Devotion to something outside oneself. It has a somber and serious quality, unlike the romantic rosettes of the Sandy Liang hair accessories reign (she’s selling a triangular hair bandana made of mesh with a flower grid print — ngl it’s cute).
Given how inexpensive and versatile this “trend” is, I expect to see a ton of it through the spring and summer. Last spring/summer, my NYC BINGO item was this outfit of high-wist, wide-leg trousers pooling over white sneakers worn with a stretchy top. It made me laugh all summer long to see how many copy-paste looks are possible, thanks to the confluence of TikTok and affiliate links.
I have to stop myself from musing too long on this or I am going to lose my entire Sunday, and there are things to be done. Hair scarf summer 2024 BINGO begins.
𝒮𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓁𝓎,
Nicola