Scrunchies, the quintessential 90s accessory found holding up the hair of sitcom stars and pop princesses, are making a comeback on fashion runways and have the longtime backing of one of the most influential women in Washington: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Ginsburg, the 85-year-old Supreme Court justice who has sat on the court for nearly 25 years, doesn’t shy away from fashion. She’s often accessorizing her black robe with her intricate lace collars and array of different gloves.
She is also nearly always seen, both inside and outside of the courtroom, with her hair neatly tied back in a low ponytail, creating a polished look.
“I have been wearing scrunchies for years,” she said during a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal all about her go-to hair accessory.
Her scrunchie collection comes from far and wide. The world-traveling justice has picked up accessories from her stops in countries around the world. During that same interview, Ginsburg ranked her scrunchies and where they come from.
“My best scrunchies come from Zurich. Next best, London, and third best, Rome,” she told the Wall Street Journal.
The fashion-forward justice acknowledges that her scrunchie assortment may be vast, but it doesn’t stack up to the number of other accessories in her collection.
“My scrunchie collection is not as large as my collar and glove collections, but scrunchies are catching up,” she said.
Scrunchies had truly fallen out of fashion in the early 2000s, so much so that an entire episode of the hit HBO show “Sex and the City” mocked the notorious hair tie.
Protagonist Carrie Bradshaw tells her boyfriend, the author of a new book with a female lead, that the character’s scrunchie needs to go.
“No woman who works at W Magazine and lives on Perry Street would be caught dead at a hip downtown restaurant wearing a scrunchie!” she says.
The character seems to have been wrong. According to the Wall Street Journal, W Magazine included scrunchies on its trend list for 2018, they were seen on the runways at New York Fashion Week in September and Urban Outfitters said it saw a 170% growth in scrunchie sales in 2017.
