“Scarves fit well w/the greater variety and more casual, youthful look,”

September 27, 2015 4:58 PM

The Understated Elegance of the Airline Scarf by Troy Patterson [New York Times]

“Though the scarf coordinates with contemporary gender politics, it also conjures an old romance of the skies, stirring visions of aviators in open cockpits with white silk rippling at their throats and of fighter pilots wearing flight scarves printed with roaring beasts. It is also polymorphously practical. Heather Poole, a flight attendant and writer, has described scarves deployed as ad hoc bikini tops, improvised curtain ties and all-purpose utility tools: “I’ve seen a scarf used as a lanyard, a belt, a sweatband, a ponytail holder, a napkin and a compression bandage.”

posted by Fizz (20 comments total)

Next week I am going to a professional event at which we are all being encouraged to wear university apparel. I am opposed to university apparel on both aesthetic and ideological grounds, but I really want to seem like a good team player, so I ordered myself a scarf with my university' logo on it. It's clear to me that a scarf is the best I'm going to do: it's the only university-branded thing that can look even the slightest bit professional. (Dudes can do a tie, but I think I probably can't get away with a tie, being a generally pretty femme-y lady.) Sadly, my university's colors make me look like I'm suffering from jaundice, but there's nothing to be done about that.

So anyway, I am pro scarves, if you need to do that kind of thing, which apparently flight attendants do.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:32 PM on September 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

There is but one aviator scarf for me, and it is the old-school Banana Republic Army Air Forces silk scarf.

Many years ago, my mother bought me the bomber jacket I wanted from BR for Christmas (the Army Air Corps jacket, not the Goatskin Flight Jacket pictured above. Man oh man what I wouldn't give for their Portmanteau jacket today). Both of us had the sense not to go for the lambskin flight helmet, but in a fit of whimsy she got me the silk scarf to go with it.

I think I wore the scarf in public at least three times. Looked like a complete toolbox, I did, but I loved it.
posted by delfin at 6:22 PM on September 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'd do almost anything for a complete Viviene Westwood Virgin Atlantic outfits. Scarves, coats, THAT RED, those hats, OMFG. Soooo good.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:33 PM on September 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

I've actually rocked this look a couple of times with a shirtdress. It's more self-consciously style-y than I normally am, but I have some nice scarves for various reasons and enjoy trotting them out for a little flair.
posted by Miko at 6:48 PM on September 27, 2015

An ex-girlfriend was a full-on, Olympia-livin', Evergreen State-attending riot grrl. Now she's a flight attendant.

"How's the scarf?"
"Fuck you. I travel for free. How's your suburban life?"
"Point taken."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:51 PM on September 27, 2015 [18 favorites]

@CPB: Your friend sounds like the person I wish I could be.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:00 PM on September 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

“I’ve seen a scarf used as a taco gun, a wizard, a laser, a unicorn dispenser, a surfectant and a suspension bridge...”
posted by Bob Regular at 7:17 PM on September 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

Huh. It looks like a custom image silk scarf is $20 to $40 for a 20.5x20.5" to 80x42" scarf, if you need to send an exam cheat sheet or one-time pad to a dear friend.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:48 PM on September 27, 2015 [10 favorites]

I've seen scarves you people wouldn't believe. Attack scarves on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I've watched scarves glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those scarves will be lost, in time, like tears in rain.
posted by uosuaq at 7:48 PM on September 27, 2015 [21 favorites]

Just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar Hitchhiker can carry. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your scarf in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can wear it around your neck if it still seems to be clean enough.
posted by Foosnark at 7:52 PM on September 27, 2015 [14 favorites]

I've seen scarves you people wouldn't believe. Attack scarves on fire off the shoulder of Orion; I've watched scarves glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those scarves will be lost, in time, like tears in rain.

Shrug. I always know where my towel is.
posted by adept256 at 8:03 PM on September 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

The author should have mentioned escape maps, which were printed on silk, and could be worn as scarves.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:00 PM on September 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

In spite of sounding like a porn site, uniformfreak.com, flight attendant Cliff Muskiet's photo database of airline uniforms (linked in the article) is a really impressive collection, well worth a peek. (Or, you know, worth losing yourself in as you investigate questions like "wait, why do those two airlines have the same uniform?" and "there was a Hooters Air?" and "what is that animal supposed to be?")
posted by gingerest at 11:12 PM on September 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Scarves are perhaps a lot more ubiquitious in Europe. Especially Paris. But mostly everywhere else on the continent in professional settings.
posted by infini at 12:24 AM on September 28, 2015

Similarly, as a kid I had an Oshkosh B'Gosh red checked hanky that someone gave me, which served that same sort of myriad imaginative-play purposes as these professional scarves serve in the grown-up world. I used it as a tent, a hammock, a blindfold, a bandage, a flag, an ocean, a blanket, a hobo bag (with stick), a turban. I see the same sort of behavior in my two-year-old with his set of play scarves (a cave, a cape, a hat, a skirt, etc). Really there's no limit to what you can do with a square piece of cloth. Look at the Japanese furoshiki.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 1:08 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here I am, still rocking a Buff, ten years later.....
posted by valkane at 5:54 AM on September 28, 2015

“I’ve seen a scarf used as a lanyard, a belt, a sweatband, a ponytail holder, a napkin and a compression bandage.”
Simultaneously? That's impressive!
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:30 AM on September 28, 2015

“I’ve seen a scarf used as a lanyard, a belt, a sweatband, a ponytail holder, a napkin and a compression bandage.”

Don't forget about evading the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:54 AM on September 28, 2015

Airline scarves are okay, but larger, floaty silk scarves -- 20-something by 60-something inches -- are my truly indispensable go-to.
posted by desuetude at 11:43 PM on September 28, 2015

It is also necessary to show your membership in the Barden Bellas.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:54 PM on September 28, 2015