After a steamy summer, and in spite of the rain, the cool air feels good. It’s nice to pull on a sweater again, and of course, to wear a scarf when they’ve all been folded away in a drawer for months. If you’re traveling this fall, scarves are the easiest way to take just a few garments and transform them for multiple events. My rule of thumb is to take twice as many scarves as you do actual garments, so if there’s a little black dress in that carry on, you can transform it completely by changing the scarf for every evening out. Scarves spruce up a blouse or sweater too and keep the wind from destroying your carefully blow-dried hair. My husband, who loves convertibles, definitely gives my scarf collection a work-out!
There are a million ways to tie a scarf – we’re working on video directions for the LensFlair Editions website as I write this but let me show you a few of my favorites for the this fall’s au courante color palette. Let’s start with a newish scarf, since its name is Autumnal. It’s a collaboration between artist Robin Malpass and me – her painting surrounded by my photographs of dried hydrangeas. Classic Chicago’s own Marcy Carmack wears a 50” square tied as a kimono below.
The 50” scarves work as sarongs, kimonos or large wrapped shawls, the way Marcia Grunsfeld wears her Mozart square below, styling it with a black crushed velvet dress. Trés chic, especially with bold red lipstick. Below the image of Marcia are my four photographs used to create the scarf – all taken in Mozart’s apartment house at Domgasse 5 in Vienna.
Another scarf look that’s trending this year is the waist tie. Slung low on the hip or tied at the waist to replace a belt, it adds style to everything from jeans to dresses. Munara wears my Classic Prague design created from a variety of architectural details captured in Prague. Munara wears it here with a very packable little dress that goes from a meeting to dinner. It’s 36” square and is probably the most classical scarf design in the LensFlair repertoire.
Below, Jewelry Designer Francesca Mattozzi wears a 36” square scarf named Paris Coco, perfect for all the shades of chocolate appearing everywhere this fall! The tie is not actually a tie, but is simply wrapped around the neck, with the ends loose at the sides of the triangle.
Francesca and Marielle Jones, two of my favorite models, will be starring in the how-to-tie videos. Both of them are head over heels in love with Louis Jean-Luc, our poodle who loves to steal the show (and loves to he held!) Below he appears with Marielle, who is wearing Nine, one of the scarves I’ve created via my licensing of Purvis Young’s art. It consists of nine of Young’s paintings and is perfect for fall – Louis Jean-Luc loves it too, or perhaps he just loves Marielle!
My Friend Nathalie Ribon-Tourre who was brought up in Province in France, writes a charming blog under the name Henrÿia, which was her grandmother’s name. This edition, in both French and English, is about the French term la rentrée, which is appropriate to this column on autumn. Francophiles will love learning more about this oh-so-French time of the year. https://henryia.substack.com/p/la-rentree
While you’re online, I invite you to log onto https://www.lensflaireditions.com/ and peruse the more than fifty square and long limited edition pure silk scarves in the LensFlair Editions collection. And for those of you who love leopard print (another hot item this fall) I’m working on a collaboration with photographer Shirley Nannini, pairing some of her photo-safari images of actual leopards in Africa, with one of my Reflets (Reflections) images with leopard in them – below is a teaser – it’ll be one or the other… stay tuned to see next month which one I used!
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