Mango dress
Dune London mules
Chelsea King scrunchie (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri necklace (c/o) (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba
It’s 1997. I’m twelve, already have strong opinions about the clothes I want to wear, and not considered particularly stylish as a result. For school, I prefer clothes that are comfortable and moveable, which means I wear leggings, which my peers consider hopelessly out of fashion, a lot. Some days I mind, some days I look around and realise they are all a lot less cool than they imagine. But there is one place where I absolutely care how I look – gymnastics practise.
I was an extremely dedicated, if not especially talented, gymnast growing up. A lot of my identity was wrapped up in the sport, which I practised four days a week at my peak. I could never have enough bodysuits, even if we did have to wear the same specific club suit for every competition. And for every bodysuit, I wanted – no, needed – a matching scrunchie. Never mind that my hair was so short I could barely pull it back. Colour coordination was mandatory and a scrunchie was an essential to completing my practise looks.
By the year 2000, the scrunchie trend was long over, and my gymnastics career was coming to an end, too. But I still hung onto my favourite scrunchies, sleeping with my hair tied back in a particularly beloved red crushed velvet one until it was threadbare. My hair is thick, often unruly, and traditional elastics can get uncomfortable, or so tangled they need to be cut out with scissors. Scrunchies, on the other hand, never pulled or tugged.
Naturally, I was thrilled when scrunchies began to make their comeback a few years ago. Unfortunately, their resurgence directly coincided with my hair transformation. That meant they weren’t much use to me for a couple of years. Pandemic restrictions made maintaining my bob impossible pretty quickly. When you miss three or four months of haircuts, there isn’t much you can do but let your hair grow. That’s what I ultimately did – and I quickly turned to scrunchies to keep it out of my way, especially during workouts.
While I’m not truly a scrunchie connoisseur, I know what I like. And of all the brands I’ve tried in the past year, I love Chelsea King best. Their array of scrunchie colours and styles is exactly what my colour-coordinating heart desires. (Although, admittedly, these days the colours I’m coordinating are pretty much all neutral.) As I type this, their gray ribbed scrunchie holds my hair in a bun. It’s my everyday go-to. But when I’m in the mood for something fancier, the options are endless. I’m wearing a luxe pearl scrunchie in these shots, and it’s no doubt the most chic hair accessory in my current rotation.
It’s not 1997 anymore, but I still love scrunchies as much as I did when I was twelve. I don’t pair them with bodysuits anymore – in fact, you couldn’t pay me to wear one of those awful things now. But I still feel like they pull together any outfit effortlessly.
I weirdly only just discovered a love of the scrunchie last year, about 6 months before I decided to shop off all my hair again. How I made it to the ago of 40 without ever really using scrunchies I’ll never know, but there I was. I invested in some black silk scrunchies and got an obscene about of use out of them before salons finally opened for a bit and I cut my hair short. But now, with variant cases surging and me still a week or so away from my first vaccine dose, it’s been a full 8 months since my last hair cut and I’m using my scrunchies again, if only for a time.
Courtney ~ Sartorial Sidelines
I wanted to badly to embrace the scrunchie trend, I bought I bunch, I made even more, and now I’m pretty sure every one of them has made its way on to my sister’s wrists. I guess I just have trouble re-embracing old trends. We loved them, then decided/ were told they were awful. Now they aren’t, but my mind just can’t get there.
You are beautiful and you are classy.