- The Observer, Sunday January 14 2007
Hair accessories have spent the past decade in darkest fash limbo. Alice bands and large-variant hair clips took a bad hit from the Sloanes; scrunchies were devalued by Vicki Pollard, and thus, for the past 10 years, the only acceptable way for a girl to dress her hair was with the subtlest of grips and the teensiest of hair elastics. OK, so Prada attempted to re-introduce the Alice band - with limited success - three seasons ago. And stylist Rachel Zoe tentatively relaunched the headscarf via the medium of ex-client Nicole Ritchie's signature summer look, in July 2006. But apart from that - if it wasn't neutral-coloured and super-discreet, it was definitely a Very Bad Idea.
Until, oooh ... right now. There's a hair accessory revival in the offing, chaps. It began in November 06, with Katie Hillier's haute coiff scrunchy - a black, studded PVC number that sold out of London's most achingly fashionable Dover Street Market within days, and prompted much talk regarding the Return of the Scrunchy. And it will gather pace through the next few months. If the spring/summer 2007 catwalk shows are to be believed, scrunchies are just the start. See Sonia Rykiel's runway show, where the hair accessory brief was extended to embrace crystal-encrusted Alice bands so large and ornate they virtually qualified as tiaras. And Valentino's collection, where double-strip elasticated hairbands ruled. Maybe the rest of us should just start ourselves off with a neat, broad, fabric hairband (like those available now at Topshop for £16), and see how it pans out from there.
