The turban headband

ta-dah!

  

Swim label Paolita has turned a bit of styling into a style for next year: the turban headband.

This is wicked news because when Paolita first came on the scene in my life in February, I loved the bikinis, I loved the cut-outs, I *worshipped* the beach hoodie in blush - and it was all buy-able.

But when I asked the designer Anna Paola Papaconstantinou about how I'd go about gettin myself one of them latin-looking turban headbands she told me all casual like that she'd tied some spare fabric onto the models last minute just before the show.

OH. But I want one.

 Everything's fine now because AP has introduced tangfastic Carmen Miranda style turban-bands into her spring 2012 collection.

Between my 2nd and 3rd Corona at the Paolita Launch Party at her new studio in Portman Village recently, I talked to Anna Paola. After spotting a couple of well-constructed, reversible turban-bands peppered into her new range in her downstairs showroom, I asked:

How did the Paolita turban-band evolve?

AP: "It started with a photoshoot last year. I picked up a scarf printed in the same fabric as the bathing suits and wrapped it around the model's heads to get that kind of Frida Kahlo thing. 

"Then a lot of people started asking if I sold it, and a lot of people said they wanted it for the beach. So I got all the fabrics downstairs [in the studio] and started experimenting and trying to make my own practical version of a turban headband."

Then we talked about how turbans were massive in the 60s (women wore them in the streets!) but that the trend had never got off the ground since.

Unless you count Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser who in my mind has single handedly got it off the ground, circled the earth, conquered other galaxies and pretty much done the turban justice for womankind:

Then I had a thought that Anna Paola may have plucked this whole turban band thing from something in her Mexican, or Greek, past?

AP: "My Mexican grandmother had a huge collection of fashionable clothing from all over the world. And she once brought me one of her turbans from the 60s when I was really little and I would NOT take it off. It was a black velvet turban and I fell in love with it."

Don't know about you, but one of these days I'm GOING to get to a BEACH. And when I do I'm gunna make like a Sheikha and rock me a juicy turban-band.

Carmen agrees

But without all the fruit. Fruit is expensive these days.

Above: Vibrant turban band and bikini from Paolita's spring 2012 range