The Girl With a Scrunchie On Top of Her Head
There she sat, ooh-ing and aah-ing
Heavily made-up brows, eyes so sparkling
Making important observations on color and font
She’s all I needed for a poetic prompt
The beloved it girl with a scrunchie on her head
Pulling off a fashion look that makes me dread
Her fringe scrunchie so carefully positioned, though I could be wrong
But that must be the point: making her head look very long
Millenial eye for a fashion trend before her birth
Are they dressing for irony now – what on earth..?
And all along, as she spoke and spat
Turning her head this way and that
I kept my eyes on her hairdo: how much could it take
Was it glued on so that it wouldn’t break?
The point of the meeting was lost on me
All I could focus on was the girl with the scrunchie
And this, dear readers, is why I blog anonymously…
Bad poetry – check. Offensive opinions on fashion – check.
The scrunchie was right there at her hairline, hovering over her forehead! With short hair, it really stood out boldly. It was a statement: I can pull this off and be treated professionally, can you? My answer is no, I can’t.
To be honest, I don’t want to sound mean or be offensive. This girl was actually very good at her job and seemed like a nice person.
And I have zero fashion sense myself. Everyone can dress how they like and I’ll respect them equally. Dressing isn’t important to me. It’s the inside that matters. I barely have the time to brush my hair these days anyway, who am I kidding!
But sometimes I do think it’s funny how fashion trends circulate… and music too… it’s like during the course of time, we humans were only able to produce a certain amount of creative ideas, and after that: repeat, recycle, copy.
If an alien landed on Earth to study us, he would note songs as important anthropological milestones in humans’ cultural development… the soundtrack of mankind. What we came up with. What every new generation will take as given.
For instance, over here where I live, they keep playing Tina Turner’s songs on the radio over and over again – every day, year after year. I have nothing against Tina’s music, but I’m getting bored of the repetition. No, put that in the past tense: I got bored of it ages ago. It’s like after she came along, nothing worthwhile happened in music!
Why not play small, unknown artists? No, the audience wants Tina Turner, radio executives must be pondering. (Seriously though, they must’ve received a good package deal and are getting their money’s worth.)
The seemingly unrelated photo was chosen to illustrate this post since my mind flies off to a futuristic scene where that is the clock on the wall of the meeting – in reality, it’s not.
Sometimes today’s fashion looks futuristic to me: the way clothes and prints are boldly combined, with new confidence. Ensembles that were shunned during their first round are given a new chance, open-mindedly. Or maybe ironically. I have no idea which.
And then I remember, we are living in the future of the past. Like they say, the future is now. And the past just came back in the form of scrunchies.
48 replies on “The Girl With a Scrunchie”
I just found a photo of myself and my friend posing in Tallinn around eight years back. We look absolutely hideous. We had very different hairstyles (her’s short and mine longer but bleached) which were, truth be told, oh so ugly! I couldn’t stop giggling looking at the photo. At the time, we thought we looked great. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it really is funny how fashion changes and repeats itself. How something that looked awesome then is now a disaster. I can’t wait to see a photo of myself taken now in ten years, I’m sure it will be a LOL moment. 😀 I enjoyed your poem, it’s so easy to follow and understand the meaning without having to rack your brain after a long work day 💞😅 xx
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Thanks Suvi for your comment! And I can imagine! 😁 I’ve had a lot of ”what was I thinking” moments with clothes, though it’s never been anything super extravagant luckily!
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🙂 “don’t speak of love, show me” a great line from My Fair Lady spoken by Eliza Doolittle to her stumbling, shy, suitor. Oh, the girl in the short hair with a scrunchie, who borrowed Kim Kardashian’s eye brows, and Adriana Lima blue eyes that sparkle; she, oohing and awing, while I, fashionably lost, and gawking
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What a poetic response, lovely! 🤗 Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I had a moment to think about this and maybe I would rather be fashionably lost fashion-wise than a sparkling copycat. Though copying elements from here and there must bring a sense of security: it’s like a mask, or a uniform 😊
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I had to look up ‘scrunchie’ , that is how unaware I have become concerning fashion. Somewhere in my life time I stopped paying attention to fashion, and luckely so! I do remember the heartbreaks and sheer pain when in my teenage days I was wearing the wrong jeans! But Tina Turner? Really? I am fond of the music of mrs Turner, but why her? And why all of the time? It seems rather random, or maybe something in the Finnish hearts and minds must be Tina prone. It reminds me of a radio show we had in my country. Factory workers were invited to make the playlist of the daily show called ‘Labour Vitamins’. And every day, and I mean every day, on the list was Santana’s Samba Pa Ti. I can still hear every note in my head. The good thing is, it’s a fine tune, so I can live with that. 🙂
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I agree completely with you, Tina Turner has always seemed such a random choice! I’ve never heard of a Finn say they absolutely adore her, I have no idea why her good old 80’s songs are played so much over here. She has become a staple, they’ve made her into a basic ingredient. No one questions it or wonders about it.
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“And then I remember, we are living in the future of the past.”
Uuu what a finish! I laughed at your poem so much, it’s not bad at all, it’s honest and necessary. I felt you at that meeting, how you are watching this woman, feeling luckily grown up. 😀
I’m so out of touch that I have no idea how a short-haired person can have anything in her hair. I’m so out of fashion that I’d think a ridiculous person was such on her own, without entire “fashion” behind her. The first time I saw a man with jeans worn low and baggy I thought it’s just him. 😀 Then came others. But Tina Turner, really? I haven’t heard her in ages. Here in Italy they are crazy about the same Italian songs. Radio stations, handsomely paid too, I’m sure. The soundtrack of mankind, where capital is king just like everywhere else. A fun post!
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”We are living in the future of the past” – I’m pretty sure I got that from somewhere and it’s not mine originally. But I have no idea where and found nothing googling it. As for short hair, I meant chin-length, but for some reason I imagine a scrunchie looking slightly less crazy on a long-haired girl. Not to mention if it was used to create a ponytail or bun or something else a bit less conspicuous… 🤪
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Whether you have “fashion sense” or not, some things are just distracting. Hair in the face is one of them, whether the offender is a man or woman.
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Yes, distracting is the word! She looked like an exotic bird had landed on her head and was nodding in sync with her head movements.
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What, pray tell, is a scrunchie?
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An 80’s-90’s hair thing. In Finnish, they are called “hair donuts”! 🍩
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I think I see what you mean. Like Madonna’s haircut in the movie “searching for Susan desperately”?
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Hmm, a bit, but a more girl-next-door version of it…
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I’m sure there were plenty. 🙂
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Strangely enough that haircut never quite made it to France. Weird, the world was already global.
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Ha! I was just thinking: “are we really having a conversation about haircuts?” 😉
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Hahah! Apparently so!!
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Love it. Be good Lumi.
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There’s really nothing new in the world. In the field of writing, it’s said that there are no new plots, just the same stories given little twists depending on the age and setting. And as far as fashion goes, well … It’s scary that I actually do know what a scrunchie is.
As far as bad poetry goes, may I recommend the book ‘Poetic Gems,’ selected from the works of William McGonagall. You have a loooong way to go to match him!
Also, I very much like your line, ‘we are living in the future of the past.’ I was have a conversation about this just this evening. My feeling is that the present is not better or worse than the past (or future), it’s just different.
And, finally, I’m a compulsive whistler/hummer/singer. I listen to a classic rock station on my drive to work and three times last week, when I turned on the radio, the song I’d been whistling/humming/singing was playing or played next, and not especially popular songs either. What’s that about?
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That’s funny, your radio predictions. I sometimes have that thing where you think of a person and then run into them. As for plots, yes I have to agree! Even take the work of a single author, like Michael Connelly whose Harry Bosch mysteries I love. The first five books or so were pure genius. But the next 30 books are utterly predictable repetition. Crooked cops and politicians, the same final plot twist, and so on. I looked up Poetic Gems, by the way… 😊
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Millenials are, like, in our thirties now. We are old enough to remember when scrunchies were cool the first time round 😛
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So maybe you can tell me then, was this girl’s look intended to be goofy in a funny/hipster kind of way? I really can’t tell! My brain has switched to grandma mode apparently after having kids.
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You put a big smile on my face with your poem about the girl with the scrunchie..
What’s going on these days with fashion? I’m not that old and I keep finding in the stores “new” versions of clothes that my mother bought me when I was a girl or a teen…. and funnily, the new versions of those clothes are poor or ugly copies that doesn’t even fit or look well!! Well, I guess these are the mysteries of the fashion industry, right? That’s why I prefer to buy just basics… btw, were scrunchies really something cool in the past??!!! I’ve always hated them, hahaha
I can’t tell about the music… I think I’ve been listening to the same groups since I moved from Spain so many years ago… not having car means that I don’t listen to the radio that often… I end up listening new songs when I go to weddings in Spain, where DJs only play reggaeton, which I hate, and make me go back to my old play list again… hahaha… I guess Tina Turner and the classics are better than reggaeton in any case 😛
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Yeah I’ve always been a basics girl too, fashionwise. Sneakers and jeans, maybe a crazy print shirt nowadays but 10 tears ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of it! But music, I actually like reggaeton a lot!!
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Really?? I’ve never understood why it’s so successful!!! Ok, its rhythm is very catchy and everything and its very inviting to dance, hehehe. But the lyrics are far from poesy, if they are not pure misogyny they are almost pornography most of the times!! Hahaha
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Well I used to take dance classes since I was a teenager (but not after having kids, not yet). All sorts of dance classes: dancehall reggae, latin dancing (solo), etc. I loved reggae and latin music. As I grew up it evolved into samba and reggaeton. It’s about the rhythm and energy, not the lyrics – luckily I only understand a fraction of what they’re singing! (Reggae lyrics are also horrible)
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Hahaha, probably they’re also terrible, I admit I don’t listen too much reggae either… And don’t worry, I’m the weird one in my family regarding music preferences, hehehe 😛
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🤣
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I have it on good authority (aka my daughter) that scrunchies are back in, but that you wear them around your wrist! How strange is that? I tried doing that one day – just for the sake that I had some scrunchie I had silk painted lying around and wanted to have one on hand (oops – no pun intended), in the midday heat so I could tie up my hair as it has grown so long. It felt quite silly having this large fabric thing on my wrist! I didn’t feel very fashionable at all! But wearing one on one’s forehead – that has to be a kind of dare! Surely? Love the poem. I am a sucker for a crazy rhyme.
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Scrunchies around your wrist, well that’s new! I wonder when the trend will land here, inevitably it will at some point…
I always wear a ponytail and in the early 90’s I did have scrunchies, but I haven’t missed their absence one bit!
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I can tell you are not a fan, Snow!! Lol!! Funny how the earlier fashion trends are harder to re -visit if you have lived through them once. Like high waisted jeans…..ugh.
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I’m not a fan! But also the way she positioned it, like it was a joke, and then went to a business meeting like that! She even held a sales presentation. How can you take someone seriously if they look like that? Did she know how popular that little thing used to be or was she oblivious to its past? But apparently you CAN attend a business meeting looking like a true fashion victim, AND be taken seriously! No one seemed to bat an eyelid! 🤣
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Amazing. I hope it want a hair product she was pitching!!
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Hahahah!! Nope! That might’ve made sense though! 🧐
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Why you blog is why we read 🙂 Great poetry, I was smiling all the way through.
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Thanks Randall, that’s so nice of you to say so. The encouragement keeps my blog going! 😉
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I’m always amused by certain fashion choices … this one sounds a bit odd, but I guess vision and mobility are no match for fashion! I’ve had my own hilarious-in-retrospect sartorial choices, so I probably can’t judge. I wonder when Farrah Fawcett “wings” will come back so my high school and college look is back in style again! 🙂
Like a few other commenters, I am baffled by the popularity of Tina Turner in Finland! (Or anywhere, for that matter.) Thanks for a fun post!
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Some things are just too weird to understand! That goes for both the hairdo and Mrs Turner 😊 Thanks Lexi for tuning in! Hope you are well
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Fun read.. I have never had any fashion sense and wear sports cloths way too often.. 😉
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Oh I love to wear sports clothes. Actually Finland is great for us casual dressers because it’s all about comfort over here! 😀 Well, mostly.
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The first thing I want to say right away: do you know scrunchies are illegal in France? Well they are in Paris for sure… probably not REALLY illegal but I doubt anyone wants to be seen with one out of her own homes!
I’m not into fashion either but I love style. I like when people manage to put things together and end up with an attitude! Paris was so full of that this weekend. What I really appreciate is the uniqueness which makes you think “aaah I have something like that but never thought it’d look that good with that top /these shoes”!
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Well Paris is the home of fashion so they must know best! Finns are so very Americanized in their ambitions which I guess goes for fashion too.
As for your style story, it reminds me of my days in Paris. I’d see someone in a oversized knit sweater in the metro, with irregular tear holes in it, and a big red scarf tied around their neck, reading a book casually while standing, and it was si cliché but looked very cool. But if I were to try that look myself, with a sweater with HOLES in it, I can promise you I would NOT look stylish!!
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It really is an attitude thing. If you act cool and casual, I guess you can be stylish!
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I find it so amusing that so many of the fashion trends from my teen years keep coming back. And having a teenage daughter makes it all that more amusing. 😉
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Oh yes! I remember my mother telling me the same thing when I was a teenager. Round and round we go!
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2019 and playing Tina Turner until it’s repetitive … that’s unexpected! still i guess the whole country has the Nutbush down!
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Heheh, well Private Dancer seems to be the No 1 hit, melancholy and sad lyrics are the way to Finnish hearts, musically…
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