Step-by-Step Guide: How to Wear a Shawl Like a Runway Model, Not Your Nan

GIFTS AREN’T ALL you should be wrapping this season. If you’re remotely fashion-minded, now’s the time to swaddle yourself dramatically in oversize shawls and wraps. Stow away those wispy pashminas and grab one of the voluminous alternatives that billowed down fall runways, such as Michael Kors’s scarves, whose fringed ends practically tickled the ground. 

Consider the vast swaths of wool that draped models’ entire upper bodies at Saint Laurent’s fall show. For Melanie Masarin, 32, the Los Angeles founder of nonalcoholic aperitif brand Ghia, they evoke memories of her childhood in France. “It’s a very common look there. My mother and grandmother have always worn wraps like this,” she said. Masarin considers the desire to enrobe oneself in a scarf of outlandish proportions a reaction not just to dipping temperatures, but to the times. “I’m craving fuzzy, cozy, wraparound knits to shield me from the news these days.”