Tuesday, February 06, 2007
WINTER WARMER
I have too many scarves.
As a child, I managed to acquire a second hand girls' annual from the 1950's which was aimed at the lacrosse playing boarding school gel who would've been at home in the pages of Malory Towers books. Did these type of girls actually exist?
Well, one feature was suggesting ways that they could make themselves more attractive (presumably in case they met any boys. Which was unlikely, as they spent all their time at all girls boarding schools, playing lacrosse or riding horses or having scrummy midnight feasts w. potted meat sandwiches and lashings of ginger beer).
The annual suggested the following (I can remember it more or less word for word because, of course, I decided to live by this wisdom forever. It certainly helped me attract hundreds, nay, thousands, of admiring suitors from wealthy families):
"If you are the plainer type of girl, don't despair. A sweet smile or a pretty laugh work wonders. They tell a boy "I am feminine!" Many of us cannot afford the latest fashions, but ring the changes to a simple outfit with a gay accessory such as a brooch or scarf."
I've never amassed a collection of brooches, which might've been a bit more "it" in 1952, but I own a mountain of scarves.
Thin scarves, thick scarves, silky scarves, woolly scarves, printed scarves, plain scarves.
Yes, I use different types of knots when I wear them, which is poncey and pretentious.
I see a scarf and think "blimey, that looks like one of them Joan Miro murals, it's dead weird, it's only two quid in the sale, I have to get it!" and that's that.
The problem is, due to global warming, scarves are surely about to go the way of the dodo.
What with central heating, everyone wears short sleeves, even in the winter. Indoor shopping centres wack their heating up to about 30 degrees centigrade, presumably because they get complaints from those ridiculous people who've parked upstairs and have wandered into the centre in their shorts, t-shirts and flip flops (yeah, you do see them, don't you, even in February) ...
I won't be getting rid of my scarves because I am a hoarder.
Perhaps I could use them in, like, some sort of Joan Miro mural ...
Labels: Acrylic, Dame Margaret Rutherford, Darrell Rivers, gay accessories
