The 90’s were the halcyon days of delightfully kitschy, tasteless, and unapologetic accessories. The 90’s silhouette can be described as pedestrian to the style snobs among us but you must admit, the brazen surface level conceit of the style is appealing in this time of studied pretentiousness and minimalism. It’s not that the scrunchie ignores the tenets of appropriate sartorial conduct, but rather that it’s completely ignorant to them.
With this paradigm in mind, I invite us all to reimagine and reflect upon the integrity (or lack thereof) of the scrunchie. The strength of the scrunchie is that it revels un-self-consciously in its triteness. It delights in the poor taste that lies at its core. The blatant tackiness of the scrunchie is made manifest in the rainbow tones that grace its wavy contours. Who can resist the temptation of a neon magenta scrunchie in times of strife and uncertainty? A raspberry blue when it just won’t stop raining? What about a volcanic red when he doesn’t call you back, again?
Though a scrunchie doesn’t promise to solve any of the material problems encountered in the course of any human life it does do something your therapist can’t. It offers a delightfully devil-may-care tackiness that renders your problems ridiculous. And doesn’t this dazzlingly emphatic artifice kind of make everything seem…not that serious? This is your permission slip. Go stock up on a popsicle stand variety of scrunchies and face the day with the unreflective tenacity of the blissfully sartorially ignorant.
