As if I don’t have enough insecurities already about my fashion choices, The New York Times columnist Alisha Haridisani Gupta has given me one more thing to keep me awake worrying at night. In her recent piece, Does Your Winter Scarf Make You Look Old? Gupta suggests that our choice of scarf can make or break the world’s perception of our fashion savoir faire. When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, scarves (often knitted by our mothers) were worn primarily to keep our necks warm. We wore them wrapped around our parka or crossed over inside the collar of our church coat, without a thought to the colour, fabric, or shape. Scarves were mostly utilitarian articles of clothing that sometimes doubled as nose wipes.

When boomer gals grew into savvy career women and became aware of dressing for success, we asserted our business cred by imitating that special je ne sais quois of French women by adding scarves to our accessory wardrobes. In the days before the internet, we bought illustrated, stand-up books we could prop up on our dressers, showing us the various ways of tying and styling a scarf. Over time, we upped our game by springing for silk and linen over polyester, for better draping and shaping. That should have been the end of the story—but Gupta suggests otherwise.

It has taken me years to achieve what I consider scarf confidence. I’ve donated dozens of failures to charity bins and even managed to finally corral my carefully edited current collection into an efficient and workable storage system. A few years ago, I started storing my scarf collection in the front hall closet in the individual cubbies of hanging shoe bags for easy access and visibility. This genius system also prevented unwanted creases and wrinkles caused by draping them over hangers, or stuffing them into ringed organizers. Drawers never worked as they piled up unseen and unworn.

Agism has crept into so many areas of our lives already, and we are now faced with being classified as old and passé by our choice of scarf colour and shape. According to Gupta, “People are suggesting that the way a scarf is worn is a telling sign of someone’s age. Like similar debates over sock length and the width of jeans, those about scarf styling have largely been conducted on social media. They are rooted in the divide between Gen Z-ers and millennials, the generations whose style choices are now regularly used to establish what looks youthful and fresh, and what looks old and tired.” Ouch! Are they talking to me?

The article goes on to inform me that the latest trend for a triangular shape should not be worn by those of us who are boomer-aged, because we will be construed as trying way too hard. Rather than risk being laughed at on the street, I guess I’ll stick to my traditional squares and rectangles. There are times, however, we have to dig in our heels because those smarty-pants fashionistas are not always right. Case in point: They say, “Pulling a scarf over your head creates a hood-like covering that resembles those worn by babushkas? Youthful.” Wrong! I won’t be buying a trendy triangle scarf anytime soon (so she says!) because it’s not a style I personally care for. I don’t want to go out looking like Queen Elizabeth at the race track, or, land sakes, a babushka.

I once had the same attitude toward barrel-legged jeans, but I now own and proudly wear a washed black pair from GAP that I love. We all remember our jeggings phase. Sometimes jumping on the cheap trend bandwagon once in a while does make us feel current, not old and boring. Scarves are a quick and beautiful way to amp up any outfit. I just hope the ones I have in my current, carefully edited collection don’t make me look old and fat. You would take me aside and gently tell me, wouldn’t you?

Thought For The Day

Be the woman who fixes another woman’s crown

without telling the world that it was crooked.