I'm watching Jonathan Creek on the Drama channel at the moment, a quirky late-1990s crime series centred on Alan Davies (Jonathan Creek) - playing a professional illusionist - and Caroline Quentin (Maddy Magellan) - playing an investigative crime journalist - whose combined skills are handy for solving baffling but intriguing crime mysteries. Strange to say, I hardly watched Jonathan Creek when it was current on TV. As with many things, I couldn't fit it into my life. Or perhaps it clashed with something else that my partner at the time wanted to see, such as Strictly Come Dancing or I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here (neither of which were my cup of tea, and I've never watched them since: dancing and jungle challenges being of no interest whatever).
The thing is, I immediately noted that in the first programmes of this 2021 Jonathan Creek re-run - first shown in 1997 - that hairbands were then rather fashionable. Then they went out. I began wearing them in 2009, and immediately adopted them as part of my signature look, but I was always conscious that nobody else was popping them on their head, although it's long been cool to use one's sunglasses as a trendy hairband-substitute.
It's nice to see that that hairbands for adults were once so popular. And they are definitely on their way back.
I like hairbands because they frame the face well, hold back strands of hair that would otherwise fall over the face, and otherwise add some easy decoration to one's above-neckline appearance. You can put them on, and take them off, in an instant - anytime, anywhere. A bit like Martini Bianco, if you can recall the TV ads. Remember, I'm not one for make-up, apart from lipstick. I don't have an elaborate, high-maintenance hairstyle. I don't go in for earrings. But I do want something to relieve the Melford plainness.
In the last couple of years, but particularly during the last year, I've been investing in simple but expensive hairbands that look so much nicer, and will probably stand up to a lot more wear than the cheap bands I used to buy from Boots or Superdrug. They are still simple hoops, but in hand-finished resin, or perhaps fabric, with luxury designs and colours.
I've turned to Tegen in Brighton again for my latest purchases, which arrived two days ago. Two 20mm-wide resin hairbands made in France. One (called 'White Tokio') is just another example of a band I bought from Tegen earlier in the year, and wear so much that I thought it wise to buy another, to prolong the life of the original. But the other is new. It's called 'Spiced Orange', and not only has a basic random pattern of chopped-up orange peel, there are glints of purple and green in there. Perfect for Christmas-time, but suitable for any time really.
Here are the two bands. They arrived beautifully-packed in the usual Tegen way, and for ongoing use have their own yellow cotton bags with pink drawstrings:
