11 Unconventional Scarves to Get You Through the Rest of Winter

Photographed by Bibi Cornejo Borthwick, Vogue, August 2018

My dear friend, the wonderful Mickey Boardman, once likened my shopping habits to a faucet that is never entirely turned off. In other words, even when I am broke, even as my armoires are bursting—I hired someone recently to help sort them out, but that’s another story—I never entirely stop buying. Still, January proves challenging. It’s frequently awful outside, and sadly a new coat is out of the question, as the stores are flooded with sandals and summer dresses. Plus, in a down coat, which is really the only suitable alternative at this time of year, I look like a stevedore in a tutu.

But what to do? I have to have something new! So I often turn my attention to what my pal, the vintage dealer and doyenne of Screaming Mimi’s, Laura Wills, calls “novelty scarves.” By this she means something funny and fun to tie around your neck that is miles away from the traditional tartan; even something meant to raise a faint chuckle as you trundle out into the sleet.

This season, the penchant to slap a brand’s name on everything is in full flower when it comes to mufflers, which, in the case of a faux-fur behemoth from Balenciaga, means gigantic letters that have a certain transgressive charm. Or consider Off-White’s black-and-white example, a meta experience that is slapped with the word scarf in quotes. The animal kingdom also makes a cameo: Eton’s blue-and-white number sports cartoonish pandas and raccoons, while at K. Janavi, beaded golden flies with shades of Elsa Schiaparelli alight on a cashmere muffler. But maybe what I really want is the toothy dripping-monster scarf from Walter Van Beirendonck, given he’s been a subversive force in the fashion world for decades. This creature might just cheer me—or you—up as we long for spring: 57 days away and counting.