You will buy this scarf at the big rug-shop at the corner of Waterlooplein – buy or maybe steal, or let’s say inadvertently forget to pay for it, though the gain will be poor, for it will merely be a cheap cotton scarf worth a few Euros, sporting the most cliché cannabis leaf pattern – white on black. It will not be intended to fulfill any aesthetical purpose of make any statement though, but only to contain the sweat exuded from your skull while training at the dance studio in Koestraat or jogging in Vondelpark – you’ll become a heavy sweater after gaining age and weight.
Still, the cannabis leaves being so small and stylized that they can pass for Japanese peacock crests, this summary garment will be somehow reminiscent of a Japanese scarf offered years before by a dear friend who probably will never know how precious this gift has been, and to be lost later in a Jazz festival in the north of France, forgotten in someone’s car and promised to be returned – that will never happen. Used as a sport headband, this Waterlooplein scarf will be frequently washed and rapidly lose its black taint, turning to an almost elegant mouse gray…
Years later when you cannot train at all anymore because of various accumulated pains and diseases, this scarf will still be used while mountain hiking, soaked with more sweat but also protecting your skull from sun and wind; unfolded it will be large enough to sometimes wrap your baby, hold an injured arm in a sling, pack stuff or be used by your girlfriend as a sarong… After ten years it will still be in a pocket of your backpack for it will always have its use, until you’ll start wearing it again regularly – seemingly piraty-style, but actually inspired by the way Keith Richard will wear his Fedora in the 2000s – under your Berlin-era bowler hat, when you’ll finally acquire one after dreaming of it for 20 years.
When you’ll move from Berlin to Vienna you’ll figure out that the horse-carriage drivers that promenade tourists around Vienna as part of a delinquent rehabilitation program all wear bowler hats, and the one you will painfully purchase – it will not be easy to find one that looks authentically British and not slyly Mittel-European – will not be cool at all anymore (you will still wear it when visiting other cities though). Fortunately you’ll be able to quickly shift to a low flat-top hat – renamed Dead Man Hat after Johnny Depp made it famous again in Jim Jarmush’s movie – still with this old scarf under it – you’ll have one for only 25 quids from a UK online store. That will be around this time that Adam Ant will make his last come back, sometimes wearing a flat hat topping a scarf, but mostly a big cocked hat with high feathers – and he will still be mostly ignored in Continental Europe…
At some point you will start looking for new scarves with richer patterns and more precise dimensions – you will even buy from Etsy.com a designer waxprint bandana with a hand-printed Anonymous / Guy Fawke / V for Vendetta face on it, to be worn indifferently at a fashion show or a street riot – this is Berlin after all -, but you will almost never wear it…
