Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/726108
C oco Brun, the creator of luxurious silk twill scarves in luscious patterns, thinks French women's reputation for the chic deployment of printed squares of fabric is, well, a bit overrated. Yes, Catherine Deneuve and Romy Schneider managed to look fetching in Hermès babushkas, and Brigitte Bardot rocked the headscarf that tamed her wild blonde mane. "But in the U.S. in the 1950s, you had Grace Kelly," the Paris-based pattern designer and illustrator says, in her potent Gallic accent. "And then all over Asia, in Japan and Indonesia, for example, people use fabrics more than anywhere else." The turban, traditionally an item of men's dress in India, began appearing as a fashionable accoutrement in Western women's portraiture about 300 years ago, when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, married to the British ambassador to Turkey, sparked the trend. Couturier Paul Poiret helped revive the style, adorned with feathers and jewels, as an elegant alternative for evening headdress in the first decades of the 20th century. And despite the notorious death-by-neck-scarf of dancer Isadora Duncan (caught in the TIE ONE ON Designer Coco Brun shares a brief history of scarves, and reveals why they're making a comeback this fall. BY LESLIE CAMHI Coco Brun, in her Paris studio, creates vibrant scarves for her Forget Me Not collection. 90 BAL HARBOUR PHOTO BY SILJA MAGG