Yes, scarves are still covetable – you just have to look at the success of Alexander McQueen’s skull-print squares now celebrating their 10th anniversary, or walk into any Hermés store, to know that they are highly desirable, but they are now worn around the neck or fixed to a bag. Accessible fashion hadn’t been invented yet, so the headscarf was one of the few ways women could express their joie de vivre.Īs a fashion statement, the mammy-headscarf, along with the mantilla, disappeared round about 1970 and is one of the few pieces never to have made a comeback. These were the war years when, across the water, the same scarves were knotted atop Land Girls’ heads, while here women battled daily with rationing. In rayon, chiffon or silk, the headscarf is firmly knotted under her chin. In any prevailing image of the traditional Irish mammy, she’s wearing a headscarf. Since then, many fashion brands and designers have used Aran stitching for inspiration – Peter O’Brien created an Aran-inspired evening dress studded with rhinestones for Rochas in 1993 (it’s now in the Ulster Museum) even Jean Paul Gaultier dabbled in Aran in 1985, creating a (it has to be said, questionable!) man’s suit with tight trousers and hat. Until then any non-fisherman wearing a geansaí was a tourist or beardy mountaineer, but the sight of Liam and the boys strolling on a Greenwich New York sidewalk, to meet his mate Bob Dylan for a pint, brought the Yanks flocking in droves to buy a báinin. Some 20 or 30 years later, another romantic Irishman, Liam Clancy, along with his Clancy Brothers, transformed the Aran sweater into a must-have fashion item for Irish Americans. It was in the 1930s when the Aran went commercial, as softer merino wool started to be used, sometimes mixed with silk, alpaca or cashmere, to make them lighter and softer, albeit no longer waterproof. Each pattern in the Aran has meaning – cable stitching represents fishermen’s ropes honeycomb denotes bees hard at work and the diamonds symbolise the network of island fields. The Aran jersey, originally handknit from heavy, unbleached wool, evoked a life of hardship and adventure. Through Flaherty, the fishermen’s rugged faces and rough workwear in serge and wool came to international attention. Even though this cool foreign beauty won the ironic spot on our banknote, perhaps the roughly honed Pegeen Mike, all anger and emotion, would have been truer to us.Įurope had Romantic Man staring in wonder at the Alps, but in the 1930s, thanks to American documentary filmmaker, Robert Flaherty, romantic Ireland's Man of Aran took to the stormy seas of the Atlantic Ocean. The picture was painted by Sir John Lavery in 1923, the model his wife, Hazel the irony. In the 1920s, new Irish banknotes were issued with a picture of traditional Irish womanhood – Cathleen ní Houlihan, with her wool shawl perfectly framing her beautiful face. We had drawers full of them, in every shade, practical in a country known for gale force winds howling across its tracks.īut the shawl, as a historic garment, has another, more hauntingly beautiful image. The pashmina, luxurious, glamorous, many-hued, was embraced by a nation of female race-goers and wedding guests. Pegeen was no fashion plate, but decades later, in the 1990s, the nation was awash with shawls of a different kind. It didn’t start with Pegeen Mike, it was around a lot earlier, but mention the word shawl and Synge’s leading lady, shrouded and lamenting the loss of her playboy, leaps to mind.
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