Co-sign!! Flirty and useful and stylish and a little bit mysterious. And love them over a jacket too, a little bonus accessory for your outerwear in the key of doily. I have a vintage aqua knit balmain (but is it really? Not sure, don’t really care) shawl with twisted fringe that comes with me in nearly every suitcase I ever pack. I love her.
Those Vogue tears make me realize how much teenaged me CLOSE READ every issue. Every time I see something from Vogue circa 1996-2002 a little beeper goes off in my memory nodes like yeah I remember this because I probably read it 3 times, VERY CLOSELY.
Re shawls. Someone mentioned South Asia because what sticks in my mind also are elder dudes in winter with kind of giant tan and khaki colored beasts with maybe red or white detailing, sumptuous!
I'm biased in favour of shawls because they're an Indian-grandma staple (saris render most other coverups lumpy and awkward to wear), but the winter ones are more my bag of chips.
Fabric with enough length and heft to swathe my entire upper body or create an almost Junya/Rick Owens-ish cape effect depending on how I choose to drape and pin it? Dramatic but easily removable? Impossible to get sized out of? Can be worn as a skirt if the fancy strikes*? Oh yeah, and they helpfully pack away flat and can serve as impromptu blankets too, perfect for flights. I'm all for this!
*the fancy did strike, when I was in my early twenties and off my face on a New Year's Eve dance floor in hot pants that weren't warm enough for 0 degree weather, even with tights.
Incredible commentary, per usual. I love that the shawl can be converted into anything....re your mention of the skirt. ALSO, I love that you mention the Junya/Rick camp of shawls because I was really deadset on thinking about the piece only in the sense of the busty church-hopping Dolce girl with her fringed shawl...! Also, I just bid on a vintage black lace one on eBay....as the nights get cooler it could look killer with a tank top.
that's what's so great about shawls as a concept - pretty much any school of dressing will have a style of shawl/wrap that works with it - from vaguely postapocalyptic Rick&Junya/Dune-type to Scottish Highland plaid to interwar governess dramatically sweeping down corridors (I adore the Dolce church girl/hot Sicilian widow vibe too, that lace shawl sounds like it'd add a right effortless zhuzh to any outfit and I hope you win it, texture is the best way to add interest to an outfit imo). I feel like they're underrated because of the 'concession to modesty' image they've had since the 90s, but it's time to revisit the reasons to actually love them in their own right.
(re: my foray into shawl-as-skirt, I only know of it via a photographic before and after of me at that party and my then roommate - whose woolly plaid shawl it was, and who was a good sport - informing me of it, hence the note about being shitfaced at the time)
I’m sleepless and went back to this piece and saw this comment--I missed responding...going back to the skirt: I had a great Ukrainian shawl I got in Kyiv years ago...moths ate it but would have been a wild fringe-forward skirt if I had chosen to go that route...they come in droves on Etsy and eBay though.
Co-sign!! Flirty and useful and stylish and a little bit mysterious. And love them over a jacket too, a little bonus accessory for your outerwear in the key of doily. I have a vintage aqua knit balmain (but is it really? Not sure, don’t really care) shawl with twisted fringe that comes with me in nearly every suitcase I ever pack. I love her.
kind of need to see....THIS!
Those Vogue tears make me realize how much teenaged me CLOSE READ every issue. Every time I see something from Vogue circa 1996-2002 a little beeper goes off in my memory nodes like yeah I remember this because I probably read it 3 times, VERY CLOSELY.
Re shawls. Someone mentioned South Asia because what sticks in my mind also are elder dudes in winter with kind of giant tan and khaki colored beasts with maybe red or white detailing, sumptuous!
I'm biased in favour of shawls because they're an Indian-grandma staple (saris render most other coverups lumpy and awkward to wear), but the winter ones are more my bag of chips.
Fabric with enough length and heft to swathe my entire upper body or create an almost Junya/Rick Owens-ish cape effect depending on how I choose to drape and pin it? Dramatic but easily removable? Impossible to get sized out of? Can be worn as a skirt if the fancy strikes*? Oh yeah, and they helpfully pack away flat and can serve as impromptu blankets too, perfect for flights. I'm all for this!
*the fancy did strike, when I was in my early twenties and off my face on a New Year's Eve dance floor in hot pants that weren't warm enough for 0 degree weather, even with tights.
Incredible commentary, per usual. I love that the shawl can be converted into anything....re your mention of the skirt. ALSO, I love that you mention the Junya/Rick camp of shawls because I was really deadset on thinking about the piece only in the sense of the busty church-hopping Dolce girl with her fringed shawl...! Also, I just bid on a vintage black lace one on eBay....as the nights get cooler it could look killer with a tank top.
that's what's so great about shawls as a concept - pretty much any school of dressing will have a style of shawl/wrap that works with it - from vaguely postapocalyptic Rick&Junya/Dune-type to Scottish Highland plaid to interwar governess dramatically sweeping down corridors (I adore the Dolce church girl/hot Sicilian widow vibe too, that lace shawl sounds like it'd add a right effortless zhuzh to any outfit and I hope you win it, texture is the best way to add interest to an outfit imo). I feel like they're underrated because of the 'concession to modesty' image they've had since the 90s, but it's time to revisit the reasons to actually love them in their own right.
(re: my foray into shawl-as-skirt, I only know of it via a photographic before and after of me at that party and my then roommate - whose woolly plaid shawl it was, and who was a good sport - informing me of it, hence the note about being shitfaced at the time)
I’m sleepless and went back to this piece and saw this comment--I missed responding...going back to the skirt: I had a great Ukrainian shawl I got in Kyiv years ago...moths ate it but would have been a wild fringe-forward skirt if I had chosen to go that route...they come in droves on Etsy and eBay though.
Love this! I still have all my shawls and pashminas from the 90s.
Bring 'em back out!
Nothing better than issues of 90s Vogue. 😍
I need something like this.it will make my physiology up and and up