Winter style: Local designers put new spins on neck warmers

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      Considering that scarves have become essential accessories even during the summer, you can pretty much count on them to have a wrap on winter.

      But the light, gauzy numbers that have become part of the uniform for celebs from Jessica Alba to Jennifer Aniston won’t keep out the cold and the damp we have to prepare for here. It’s time to get creative and cozy with your neckwear, and the Straight tracked down three local designers doing divine things with the simple scarf.

      Galit Mastai

      Galit Mastai really feels the cold, so it’s no surprise she’s knitted her way to some of the toastiest neckwear on offer this season.

      “I like to be warm,” the designer, who splits her time as a jewellery artist, admits over the phone. “I need something that covers my ears and that I can tuck into my chest—that’s really important.”

      Enter her gigantic, chunky knits in the form of pull-on cowls, hooded cowls, and long scarves in both wide and skinny versions that can be looped around and around to pile high up the neck or hang dramatically loose. Each one comes in all-natural, luxuriously soft, hand-spun merino wool. (You can buy them via Mastai’s Etsy shop, or at the Blim Market [October 31 at the Chinese Cultural Centre, and then again on November 28 and December 19], as well as at the Britannia Community Centre Christmas Craft Fair, from November 19 to 21.)

      None of the wool is dyed. “These are the colours of the sheep: cream, cocoa, and taupe,” says Mastai, who often knits by the fire at home in the winter and can be seen knitting her woolly fashions on the beach in the summer. “That’s the fun thing about it: it’s literally the wool off the sheep’s back, and no chemicals are being used.”

      Instead of using colour or sheen, Mastai makes a statement with her scarves’ simple, somewhat structural design—and of course with the chunky texture, which requires massive knitting needles. Her pull-on cowl, for instance, has one seam to give it a structure so that it can stand up. Her smaller wraparound scarf has a wooden button as a clasp—a fashionable detail with a functional benefit.

      “I bicycle quite a bit,” Mastai says, “and you can put it on and you don’t have the flapping of the scarf. It’s easy to wear and hands-free.”

      Loop Neckwear

      Michelle English’s drape-y designs fall somewhere between showstopping jewellery and textural scarf, and they offer a surprising amount of warmth.

      The former registered nurse stumbled upon the idea when she set out to create a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift for her sister last year. She experimented with a T-shirt, painstakingly cutting it into strips and wrapping them together.

      “She wore it to work and everyone wanted one,” explains English, who up until that point had specialized in jewellery. And thus the Loop Neckwear line was born. It’s available regularly at Portobello West markets at the Rocky Mountaineer Station (the line will be there November 27 and 28 and December 4 and 5), and more recently at Parliament Interiors (115 Water Street). You can also find English at this year’s Fab Fair accessories show at Heritage Hall (November 20 and 21) and December’s One of a Kind show (December 9 to 12 at the new Vancouver Convention Centre).

      By phone, English explains that the line she launched in January has evolved to include scarves in a variety of lengths, many that you can wrap once, twice, or three times for different effects. The fabric she uses is a blend of jersey and cotton, soy, or bamboo. As for hues, “I love bright colours: it’s a small commitment for colour if you want to add it to your black coat,” she explains. “I have a pumpkin one on today. It’s a lovely russet colour inspired by Thanksgiving and Halloween.” Sometimes she combines more than one within a scarf, such as rich royal and sky blues. (Prices run $40 to $50.)

      English says they can look as cool with a leather jacket as they can with a flowy dress. “It’s been interesting at Portobello, where I see people try them on,” she says, “and no matter what they’re wearing, they [the scarves] always complement their necklines.”

      Dreamy Isabel

      Ana Sousa’s soft, textural handwoven scarves have the look of heirlooms. “For me, it’s about pieces that could last a long time and could be passed along if you wanted,” says the artist, a recent grad from Capilano University’s textile-arts program.

      Sousa comes by her love of meticulously hand-making things honestly: both her grandmother and mother were embroiderers. Two years ago, she was looking to escape the world of human resources in Ontario when she heard about the textile program at Cap. There, the Dreamy Isabel line was born.

      Working at a big floor loom in her basement studio, Sousa crafts wool scarves using hand-spun merino and sometimes angora for her weft and silk alpaca for her warp. She hand-dyes it after it’s been woven in shades of grey inspired by the West Coast skies, with the odd flash of brilliant indigo.

      She creates other types of scarves as well, including one made from a silky soy fibre—a vegan product left over from the tofu-making process. She also weaves giant, six-foot-long, all-merino scarves that can wrap around the neck two or three times. And she hand-felts scarves with rare-earth-magnet closures; they have a bumpy texture thanks to the marbles she places inside the wool during the felting process (and which she removes afterward). You can find her pieces, for about $90 to $160, at Portobello West on October 31 and November 27 and 28, as well as at Gentille Alouette (227 Carrall Street), and The Cross Decor and Design (1198 Homer Street). She’s also showing a collection at Vancouver Fashion Week on November 4 at the Empire Landmark Hotel.

      “I get a lot of comments about weaving being a lost art, and I feel really lucky I learned that skill from some great teachers,” she says.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Rain

      Oct 31, 2010 at 10:23pm

      And in other news... someone else tried to do something the same but look different because enough time had gone by that maybe some people might not know about the then being as cool as the now when it was then... in a retro kinda now but then way.
      But if it sells... then the then thats now is then now cool.