Last night, awards season came to an end, and with it our endless opportunities to see Natalie Portman’s growing baby bump, Helena Bonham Carter’s inspired reaction shots, Melissa Leo’s always-on-the-verge-of-going-off-the-farm acceptance speeches, and, saddest of all, Darren Aronofsky’s endless parade of scarves. See, the Black Swan director is a scarf man, meaning, a man who wears scarves. He has been a scarf man for many years, and, one assumes, will be one for many more, but these past six months — since Black Swan premiered at the Venice Film Festival at the start of September — have been a climactic stretch for his look: Scarves are one thing when you wear them with T-shirts; they reach the next level when paired with $10,000 suits. So please, check out Aronofsky’s bold sartorial experiments with gray neckwear, and ponder just how sharp he would look in an ascot.
At the Independent Spirit Awards, Aronofsky paired a gray scarf with an open collar. A tightly wrapped scarf and unbuttoned shirt send a complex message: I am buttoned down, yet wrapped up; I do not like my neck, but I like my chest. I do not wear scarves because of the weather.
A white, striped linen number from this weekend will keep Aronofsky safe from Marc Anthony and neck injuries.
At the BAFTAs, Aronofsky wore another gray, striped scarf, this one in a darker shade that nicely complemented his black suit.
A reversible black and gray scarf for the Screen Actors Guild awards — flip it around (gray around the neck, black hanging down), and voila! A whole new, exactly the same look.
At the DGAs, the Independent Spirit scarf appears again, looking marginally sharper paired with a tie.
Baby blue really does bring out his mustache.
Seconds after this photo was taken, Sylvester Stallone playfully punched Aronofsky in the shoulder, pulled hard on his scarf, and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “What’s this?” Aronofsky replied, “Herringbone.”
“What? It keeps my head attached.”
“And, yes, I have found that scarves make people take me more seriously.”
The highlight: In a long career of scarf wearing, this will never be outdone.
