Apr 29, 2013
diy turban headwrap looks two ways
There's something about trends that are inexplicably lost on me, and being a fashion editor I find the irony to be alarming. Without fail, a slew of new prevailing tendencies emerge from the catwalks of my hometown, and Paris, and Melbourne, and London, and of course Africa and Brazil are never too far behind. In my former life as a stylist it would be my duty to digest, regurgitate, and promote unanimously agreed upon looks of the season. Thankfully I've designed my own description of what a fashion editor is, what with my new slow-and-steady-wins-the-race magazine that focuses on sustainable fashion and mindful living, but alas you cannot take the curious fashionista out of the fashion editor.
Asking me when turbans first arrived on the scene would be like asking a toddler where Pluto is. I, and the toddler, just have no idea. Studying trends as if it were my life fuel are days long, long gone, but I do know that hair pieces, head wraps, turbans, avant-garde hats and anything else that can rest on your head besides your hair has been a mainstay in the designer salad mix since Isabella Blow and Sex and the City. The very idea of a couture hat on my head gives me shivers though. In part due to my unshakable flashbacks of grandma wearing unruly concoctions atop her head every Sunday for church. No thanks. And I DID have a very insatiable love affair with headbands that fed my girly girl accessory addiction (this was a phase of my life where I very much resembled Honey Boo Boo, don't ask). But when it came to turbans and headwraps, I was stone cold to the idea. Absolutely not. Designers wanted me, a brown-skinned gal, to put a wrap on my head without judgement aimed in my direction? That was laughable. Try walking into a business meeting with a turban! No, my family is not from Ghana, thanks for asking. Or, no, I do not have marijuana infested dreadlocks under here. Thanks for asking. Better still, is when women like me reject the notion of ethnic inspired fashions, leaving room for white models to paint their skin black and throw on turbans galore, which if you didn't hear...that actually happened and caused quite the outrage.
So finally, on a very cloudy and boring Sunday that we'll call yesterday, I threw on a couple looks to see if I could peel myself off the turban hate floor and actually embrace this trend. Not for trend purposes, but purely to accept myself as a gal who can rock an ethnic look without the stifle.
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