WEARING a turban demands confidence. You have to believe, truly believe, in your look. You have to commit — it’s a turban, after all. And if you use hats to hide uncooperative hair or to keep a low profile, the turban is not a smart choice.
The turban has never really vanished, but it has been lying low. Recently, though, this dormant trend has quietly, but assertively, surfaced at fashion shows and on city streets.
In New York, Jason Wu styled his spring collection with black or cobalt turbans. The Vena Cava designers used them in their show. Giorgio Armani used North African-inspired turbans in his monochromatic collection in Milan last month. Some of the Armani models resembled Greta Garbo in “The Temptress.”
June Ambrose, a veteran stylist who has dressed artists like Mary J. Blige, P. Diddy and Jay-Z over the last 21 years, wore a turban every day during New York Fashion Week. She advised Solange Knowles on how to wear the Cavalli scarf-turned-turban that Ms. Knowles wore to the Tom Ford show. Salma Hayek carried the torch in Paris, arriving at the Stella McCartney show in a navy and white printed turban. “People didn’t bite when Miuccia Prada showed them a few years ago," Ms. Ambrose said, “but since then, it’s caught on.”
When the trendsetting Kate Moss showed up at the Met gala in a turban
in May 2009, she stood out among the parade of glamorous guests. “Kate
can look any way she wants,” said Harold Koda, the curator of the Costume Institute at the Met. “She can be the girl next door, grungy, etcetera. But once she put on the turban, she became a starlet.”
And slowly women on the street have begun to embrace turbans, showing up on Streetpeeper, The Sartorialist and other fashion blogs. And since that Prada show in 2006, versions of the turban have appeared in many collections, including the Charlotte Ronson fall 2010 show, as well as the 2010 resort collections of Chris Benz, Rag & Bone and Yigal Azrouël.
Once linked to grannies in housecoats, the turban has a new association for young women. They have embraced the sophistication linked with Hollywood glamour of the 1920s and ’30s, when women like Garbo, Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford wore them. “From way back, turbans signified a woman who was very educated and worldly,” said Caroline Rennolds Milbank, the fashion historian.
Because turbans have historically been associated with Arab dress, it is tempting to connect them with the conflict in the Middle East. “They make a strong political statement, like wearing harem pants,” Ms. Ambrose said. “We take an element of other cultures and internalize it.”
Mr. Koda isn’t convinced that they have anything to do with politics: “It’s not a part of a Kumbaya fashion movement. I think it’s more of Poiret’s view of Orientalism than women watching the news and referencing what’s going on in Afghanistan. It’s an exoticism, a sense of the other that is visually compelling.”
Ms. Milbank noted that in the past, Western culture looked at the Middle East for its exotic form of dress, which was seen as sexually liberating. “If you look back at the portrayal of women in films like ‘1,001 Nights,’ ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ or even the television show ‘I Dream of Jeannie,’ the West depicted those women very sexually with sheer fabrics and an exposed midriff,” she said. “Going back to the turban is a return to the allure and sexiness of a foreign culture.”
At a recent party in Manhattan, Keia Hamilton, 28, walked into the room
wearing a vintage jumpsuit, a denim jacket and a black-and-white turban
that she dressed with a large broach. Ms. Hamilton owned the room. As a
flight attendant for US Airways, she draws on her travels for style
ideas. She doesn’t count herself a fashion follower, but she cites 1950s
movies like “Pillow Talk” and “Vertigo” and the television show “Soul
Train” as her style influences. Her other cues come from images of
actresses like Diahann Carroll in their prime.
“People are replaying what they see from their parents, grandparents, even stuff from silent films and interpreting it for themselves,” she said. “In the ‘Soul Train’ days, it was not about being cookie-cutter.”
Not everyone finds turbans enchanting. Some fashion bloggers have dismissed them as a costume and cannot understand why they keep making a comeback. Other women are posting turban-tying tutorials.
“I was tying turbans on Busta Rhymes 10 years ago,” Ms. Ambrose said. “For me, it’s cyclical. It was time for me to bring it up in conversation again.” And she did. Ms. Ambrose recently put the R & B singer Chrisette Michele in a turban for the music video for “I’m a Star.”
No trend is certified (or killed) until it shows up in pop culture. Thanks to the costume designer Patricia Field, the turban made a cameo earlier this year in “Sex and the City 2,” perhaps its most mainstream affirmation.
“Fashion is mute until we give it a voice,” Ms. Ambrose said. “That’s the guts and the energy of this whole thing.”
You can trust a turban to do some screaming.