The only people whom I ever saw wearing a scarf in a particular way were women. I mean where you fold the scarf in two (lengthwise), pass it around the neck and put the loose ends through the resulting loop.
Suddenly last year, I began to see men sporting their scarves in this fashion (and very odd they looked, too); this year, the trend seems to have taken hold with a vengeance. One day last week, on my daily stroll at lunchtime to New Scotland Yard and back, I observed 16 chaps using what I regard as the girls’ style and only 6 with what I consider the “correct” style - which I believe is known in some circles as the “chimney sweep”, similar to the first step in tying a tie. (I am not counting the twit who inexplicably had what appeared to be a black-and-white checked tablecloth around his neck…)
How has this phenomenon come about? It’s not just young men - who may never have worn a scarf in their lives but their girlfriend bought them one and showed him her way of wearing it. Older blokes are doing it, too.
Are you talking about a knit scarf for wintertime? For one of those, the first thing I do is put on my knit hat, pulled down over my ears. Then, I start wrapping the scarf around my head: one end held at the back of my head, the scarf crosses my face just below my eyes. Keep winding the scarf around my head in an overlapping pattern till the other end is in front and hangs down about 12". Put on my coat (or insulated coveralls) and zip and snap it up tight against the scarf. Put on my overshoes and gloves/mittens and get the heck outside before I overheat. (I suppose I should mention that I only wear a scarf when it’s pretty nasty outside and I’ll be out in the weather for a while.)
The only time I wear a scarf is when I go to the football. I just hang it around my neck and one of the guys’ teenage daughters fight to show me how to loop it. We all think it’s kind of cute. The adults that is - the teenagers are dead serious.
I rarely wear a scarf unless it’s very cold or very hot. (I have some army surplus scarves made of T-shirt material that is good for wiping sweat and shielding my neck from the sun, and a knit scarf or two for being outdoors for extended periods in the winter.) I do the basic overhand knot. I might start out with the top end laying flat, but if I’m wearing a scarf it’s entirely for function and not for fashion; so it will lay how it lays. (Lay how it lay? Lie how it lay? Whatever.)
Well, there’s the kind my mom used to wear on her head…back in the days of leisure suits and Nehru jackets, stylish(?) men wore something like silky scarves used as ties. Or, inasmuch as you mentioned London, it might have been something else entirely…for example, to me a ‘bonnet’ is something Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm would wear on her head, not a part of a car.
When I lived in Baltimore I had a nice scarf to wear in winter with my business suit and topcoat – but I never tied it, I just wrapped it loosely around my neck and tucked the ends into the topcoat. The result looked something like a cravat.
The particular mode of scarf tieing described in the OP is something particularly associated with yahs. From what I remember, male students wore scarves in this fashion at least five years ago (my first year at Edinburgh - yah central). Inexplicably, people of a certain socioeconomic status seem to find wearing a scarf in the middle of summer, with a pink polo shirt, shorts and sandals, to be particularly fashionable.
I use the OP’s “girl’s style”, it fits well with a overcoat, making it possible to fill the V-shaped gap at the front and fully tuck under around the neck should it be needed. It’s allowed me to stand waiting for a taxi at 2am in a New York winter storm, feeling the cold nowhere but my feet.
I use the “wrap” method: Without wearing your coat, toss the scarf over one shoulder (I use the left). Grab it in back and bring it around your neck, so that it goes over the same shoulder again. Let it hang down your back, having gone once around your neck. Now put your coat on.
Also, when I enter a warm building, I take off the scarf before the coat. I hold the scarf at its middle, and keep hold of it as I take off the coat. Thus the scarf gets pulled through the coat-sleeve, and I let it stay there while I’m not wearing the coat. I always know where the scarf is, and it’s always near the coat.
