Category: Autumn

National Scarf Day is September 27

Last week I came across the announce­ment that the first annu­al Nation­al Scarf Day is Sep­tem­ber 27, 2018, & one thing fell in place after anoth­er. I had been think­ing about wrap­ping a scarf into an amper­sand for some time, then that announce­ment was the clinch­er — for sev­er­al reasons.

First, Nation­al Scarf Day was “offi­cial­ized” by the same orga­ni­za­tion — Nation​al​Day​Cal​en​dar​.com — that I reg­is­tered Nation­al Amper­sand Day with. (That’s Sep­tem­ber 8, & here’s why I chose that date.) Since I did­n’t yet have a theme for Sep­tem­ber’s Amper­Art piece (push­ing it till the last minute again), this was def­i­nite­ly a pos­si­bil­i­ty. I was curi­ous who came up with Nation­al Scarf Day, so I read the arti­cle at Nation­al Day Calendar. 

Lo & behold, Nation­al Scarf Day was found­ed by none oth­er than Echo Design, a high­ly respect­ed mak­er of lux­u­ri­ous, styl­ish scarfs (their orig­i­nal prod­uct, but now they offer gloves, home décor, swim­suits & more). They’ve been in busi­ness 95 years, & here’s the best part: Sep­tem­ber 27 is the anniver­sary of their first day in busi­ness. I love it when there is pro­found mean­ing for some­thing, & the name Echo was­n’t arbi­trary: it’s the acronym of Edgar C. Hyman’s name (just add cO.) To make the day they start­ed their scarf busi­ness even more spe­cial—now this is real­ly pro­found—Sep­tem­ber 27, 1923 is also day they got mar­ried! Read the fas­ci­nat­ing Echo sto­ry here.

Upon vis­it­ing echode​sign​.com, I was cap­ti­vat­ed with all the styl­ish designs & vibrant col­ors in their prod­ucts, as well as the fun & sophis­ti­ca­tion of their web­site. This imme­di­ate­ly inspired my Amper­Art design!

What per­fect tim­ing — the begin­ning of fall, when it will soon be Cool & Breezy; the date of Echo’s anniver­sary; & just about the time I was start­ing to won­der what this mon­th’s theme should be.

Before I con­tin­ue, treat your sens­es to these incred­i­ble designs by Echo. I nev­er knew scarfs could be so flam­boy­ant & artis­tic. I was on their web­site for at least an hour, like a kid in a can­dy store!

Hun­dreds more at echode​sign​.com/​s​h​o​p​/​s​c​a​rfs

Scarfs or scarves?

I was intrigued that Echo spells the plur­al “scarfs” rather than the com­mon “scarves.” I did a lit­tle research & dis­cov­ered “scarfs” is an old­er spelling, where­as “scarves” became more pop­u­lar around 1930. My orig­i­nal idea for nam­ing this Amper­Art piece was “Scarfs & Scarves” but then “Cool & Breezy” is much bet­ter, don’t you think?

Here’s a chart from writing​ex​plained​.org show­ing the usage of the two words in the last two cen­turies. “Scarfs” was just bare­ly still the pop­u­lar ver­sion when Echo Scarfs was found­ed in 1923. 
Blue: “scarfs”  Red: “scarves”

“Scarfs” sounds classier to me — each scarf is indi­vid­ual, where­as “scarves” sounds like a big pile of close­outs on the dis­count table. I’m glad Echo still spells it “scarfs.” (By the way, do you know which is more pop­u­lar: “gray” or “grey”? You’ll find the answer if you keep reading.)