The scarf as the only accessory

About two years ago I stopped wearing jewellery for everyday use. The decision was small and not dramatic. I had been wearing a set of standard items — a small pendant necklace, a thin gold ring, sometimes a pair of small earrings — for years, and I noticed one morning that I had been putting them on out of habit rather than out of any particular relationship to them. I stopped. The jewellery went into a small box in the drawer.

What replaced the jewellery, slowly, was a small set of three silk scarves. The scarves are now, by a considerable margin, the single accessory I reach for most often, and they are doing a job that the jewellery had been doing badly.

The three scarves

A small navy and cream printed silk square — sixty centimetres on a side — that I tie around my neck in various small ways. A longer cream silk rectangle, about a metre and a half by forty centimetres, that I wear as a small loose loop. A larger cashmere-silk blend wrap in a soft heather grey, about two metres by sixty, that I use as a shawl or a small blanket on planes.

All three were bought separately, over years. The square was a small splurge from a stand at a Sunday market in Lyon. The rectangle was a gift from my mother on a birthday five years ago. The wrap I bought at the end of a particularly good year, as a small reward to myself.

What the scarves do that jewellery did not

They warm. The small silk square around the neck is, in mid-season, the right amount of additional warmth. The cashmere wrap is, in winter, the difference between being cold on a train and not being cold. The jewellery had been doing none of this. It had been decoration only.

They also transform an outfit more visibly than jewellery did. A plain navy sweater becomes, with the addition of the small printed scarf, a slightly more considered outfit. The cream rectangle, worn over a plain white blouse, makes the blouse a different garment. The effect is visible at conversational distance, which most jewellery is not.

On the longevity

Silk scarves, well cared for, last decades. The square I bought ten years ago looks essentially the same as it did then. The cashmere wrap is six years old and has been hand-washed twice and has held up perfectly. The cost-per-year of a good silk scarf is very low.

What I lost by giving up the jewellery

Not much, in honesty. The jewellery had been a daily small obligation — putting it on, taking it off, occasionally losing it, occasionally needing it cleaned — and the absence of the obligation has been a small relief. The pendant and the ring and the earrings are still in the small box. I have not needed them.

The smaller offer

If you have been wearing the same jewellery out of habit and have not been getting much pleasure from it, consider giving it a rest. See what replaces it. For me it was three scarves. For someone else it might be something else. The accessory that is doing the work for you might not be the one you have been wearing.