The Mainstreaming of the $400 Scarf
Like pumpkin spice lattes are to autumn, Acne Studios scarves are to winter.
The Acne Studios scarf was always a pretty familiar sight in even semi-fashionable circles but its much bigger than that now.
Walking down any even mildly hip street in New York in January 2024, you'll be amazed at the sea of colorful Acne scarves lining the sidewalks.
Worn as a headwrap, a snood, a statement layer, and, in rare instances, a scarf, Acne Studios' signature cold weather accessory has finally crossed over to the mainstream.
It was never all that uncommon to be fair but, over the past year or so, Acne Studios' scarf peaked.
The $400 accessory has grown so ubiquitous that it's even provoked mild mockery online. There is no fame without even the gentlest backlash.
Skim Acne Studios' site — or one of the many stockists — to get a feel for what I mean by "Acne Studios scarf." It's a shroud-y neckpiece, wide, fuzzy, fringed at the ends, and — most importantly — stitched with a rectangular Acne Studios tag on one side.
In Instagram OOTDs and TikTok GRWMs (if you don't understand these acronyms, this is certainly news to you), the Acne Studios scarf is delicately layered over the shoulders with the tag facing out — ALWAYS with the tag facing out.
How else will everyone know you're a scarf-enjoyer of means?
Acne Studios' scarves range from $300 for a narrow single-tone mohair style to a $620 "extra large" iteration that lives up to its name — it's basically a pricey blankie.
The most classic variant is typically around $320 before shipping and fees — call it $400 for the sake of ease. Either way this is the quintessential Acne Studios scarf.
These things have been popular longer than Acne ambassador Kylie Jenner has been cool but they didn't hit the big time until a year ago or so, when a trickle of interest swelled enough to explode the budgeting dam, creating a river of demand (how're these water metaphors working?).
A confluence of factors worked in tandem here: heightened cultural awareness of Acne Studios (bigger pushes like the Kylie campaign helped), mohair becoming a trendy winter textile, and the innate appeal of an enormous, cocooning scarf.
And then there's the physical benefits
The Acne scarves are a useful barrier to winter chill, their colors are vivid enough to fight the winter blues, their size makes them both insulating and statement-y, and perhaps most importantly, they're a status symbol.
There's a reason that tag is always facing outwards.
TikTok's "Acne Scarf" hashtag has nearly 4.5 billion views — that's "billion," with a "B" — and nearly as many videos showing users coveting, buying, and flexing the fancy furry neckwear.
However, a not insignificant number of them are imitations.
Nearly every post on the Acne Studios Subreddit is dedicated to checking the authenticity of Acne's most in-demand products, including the scarves and terrifically popular face beanie. These things are both so hotly sought that bootlegs are unavoidable on the secondhand market.
Discussion pages for vintage sites turn up dozens of listings for fakes, commonly referred to as "dupes," that're sold for as little as $30. But even can be a lot — they were likely purchased from manufacturers of fashion counterfeits for around $5.
Instead of weighing into the dupe debate — good? Bad? Ethical? Exempt? — I'll say this: the fact that something is popular enough be faked en masse means that it's truly popular.
That is, the fact that people are duping (and sometimes making their own) Acne Studios scarves is solid proof that demand is as high as it's ever been.
Not a bad thing. But an interesting jumping-off point for further discourse.
The scarves are reflective of Acne Studios' "classic" stuff, the things that it was famous for producing a decade or so ago. Archetypal slim-fit denim jeans, classic shirts, no-nonsense leather rider's jackets, the like.
But around early 2019, mere months after Chinese investment company IDG Capitol and Hong Kong fashion conglomerate I.T Group purchased minority stakes in Acne Studios, the Swedish company headed in a decidedly more fashion-y direction.
Acne Studios, one of the original hip Scandinavian fashion labels, has always offered clothes of the timeless variety but its recent oeuvre has veered into progressive designs that flirt with current trends and sometimes seek to provoke new ones.
New arrivals to the Acne web store include foil-coated shirts and dramatically warped blazers, though it's easy to also find classic sweaters, denim jackets, and Acne-branded T-shirts.
There's a clear dichotomy between the styles of the latter and former. It isn't good or bad, it just is.
The Acne scarf reflects demand for the classic stuff. It speaks to how, no matter how advanced Acne's collections get, there will be interest in its more grounded offering.
So, the mainstreaming of a $400 scarf isn't only that.
It's also indicative of its maker's perception, of how easily already-present staples can slip into trendy must-have, and even shifting cultural norms like, well, how much people are willing to spend on a popular scarf.
About a couple hundred bucks, it turns out.
