The secret of Her Majesty’s strength? It’s all about the headscarf...
Well, let’s hope that the poor old Queen wasn’t doing Dry January on top of everything else. That might finish one off. But from the glimpses we’ve caught of her in the past week or so, driving around Norfolk in pink lippie, she looks perfectly all right. She certainly doesn’t seem too crushed or dismayed by the Shakespearean dramas behind the scenes. She seems as immune as ever. So what I’ve started to wonder is: does our 93-year-old monarch get all her strength from her headscarves?
Bear with me. There she was behind the wheel, shortly before the “Sandringham Summit” last week wearing a silk scarf patterned with dogs’ heads. It was a 1974 Hermes design, fittingly called “Monarch”. A couple of days on, she appeared with another silky number neatly knotted under the chin. Could it be that the headscarf is a vital piece of her armour, the equivalent of a knight’s helmet put on to help battle through turmoil?
I’ve done a bit of investigating and believe I’m on to something. She wore a blue-and-red striped headscarf not long after the Windsor Castle fire and the announcement of Prince Charles and Diana’s separation in 1992. In 1996, while their divorce settlement was being thrashed out, it was a navyblue version. She wore one as a diplomatic weapon while greeting President Barack Obama at Windsor in 2016. She wears them to ride. In truth, she almost never looks happier than when her head is covered with a natty snatch of silk, and my theory is that the Queen’s headscarves are almost exactly like Samson’s hair, just prettier.
Alternatively, I’m overthinking and they’re simply a practical, elegant garment that HM wears to protect her barnet and can double as a hankie if she’s ever short of a tissue. Either way, I feel it’s time for a revival.
Such scarves reached peak elegance in the Sixties, thanks to Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, but they’ve only had the odd burst back into fashion since: Rihanna’s a fan and a couple of years ago several designers sent their models down the catwalk in them.
There was a phase when everyone tied them around their handbag straps, but I never quite understood the point. Were they supposed to act as a hand-towel if you were caught short in a public bathroom? An extra muslin for new mothers? A second napkin for messy eaters? Or was it just to indicate that you could afford a Hermes scarf but couldn’t bring yourself to wear it on your head? Meanwhile, the Queen has kept the scarves on her head throughout, unmoved by the whims of fashion, and look how well she’s done.
A friend of my mother’s – who is particularly cross with the behaviour of Prince Harry and Meghan – agrees, and has launched an Instagram campaign; “We invite you to join us in a silent show of solidarity with her Majesty the Queen by wearing a headscarf quietly and without fuss,” she declared in one post, the caption written underneath a picture of a clay bust wearing an orange-and-green scarf. Join in, why not? On a practical level, they’re protection against the chilly winds of January and mean you can wash your hair less. On a less practical level, they may be invested with magical powers. Worth a shot, I reckon.