Scarves are fashion’s great equalizers. With a 50 cent silk scrap fished from the grab bin at Goodwill, one can be as poor as dirt and look as grand as dancer Isadora Duncan did before she was strangled to death when her extra long scarf caught in the wheel spokes of her speeding roadster.
Scarves are also great wardrobe stretchers. Drape a big print scarf over your head, a la Audrey Hepburn, and no one will notice you wore that dress yesterday.
If anyone knows what women really want in a scarf, it’s Nicole Miller, the designer with the tongue in chic attitude: “Something that will give you a real sense of closure. Tie up all the loose ends. Something that doesn’t detract from your eyes, your shoes or your wily ways. Something that can double as a sling if you really need it.”
Miller also knows how to do a thousand things with scarves, above and beyond design concepts. Realizing that more women would buy ‘em if they knew how to wear ‘em, she came up with a pocket-sized manual, in keeping with her irreverent style, that offers scarf-wearing tips from the practical to the outrageous; a few examples are shown below.
In the Twin Cities, Miller’s wild silk-print scarves may be found in various supply at Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Complements and Ralph Marlin.
