Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus taskforce coordinator is known for her reassuring appearances at Donald Trump’s erratic and often astonishing White House press briefings.
Most recently, a video of her face as the US president suggested injecting disinfectant into human beings might cure coronavirus went viral. As Trump spoke, Birx appeared to purse her lips and looked down, her hands clasped in her lap. Around her neck and shoulders was a silk scarf, loosely tied – almost in the style of a girl scout.
The scarf was Hermès. Or, to be precise, Hermès’ “Retour à la Terre”, in peach. We know this because there is now an Instagram account devoted to Dr Birx’s scarves. She wears a different one almost every day, tied in a variety of styles, a move that has spawned her scarves their own online fanbase.
The @deborahbirxscarves Instagram page, created by Texas resident Victoria Strout, now has more than 31,000 followers.
Strout, who works at a footage and music licensing company, said she hopes the account provides a “brain break” for people dealing with nonstop Covid-19 coverage, as well as a bipartisan celebration of Dr Birx, who has had a distinguished three-decade-long career focused on HIV/AIDS, vaccine research, and global health.
“It’s a combination of people that admire Dr Birx and also like scarves,” Strout said. “It’s kind of created its own little community, which has been really fun and something I absolutely didn’t expect.”
One follower of the account suggested Birx was using the scarves as a face mask as soon as she left the White House podium, another implored her to teach the world her scarf-tying technique.
There may also have been a “Birx scarf bump,” the Wall Street Journal reported, with one site, Vestiaire Collective, which sells second-hand clothes, reporting a 1,148% increase in the sale of Hermès scarves from the same period last year.
Dr Birx joins a tradition of powerful women signalling their feelings through the medium of trademark accessories. Lady Hale, the president of the British supreme court, favours brooches. She famously wore a giant jewelled spider the day she ruled that UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s prorogation “void and of no effect”.
Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court Ruth Bader-Ginsberg has her dissent collar.
Her Majesty the queen, may once have used a brooch to express one’s distaste for Donald Trump, her love of Obama and her approval of Canada. She may even have worn a pro-European Union hat.
Strangely, Dr Birx has not had much time to comment on the meaning behind her scarves. We know that one, an Afework Tekle art silk scarf from Ethiopia, was a gift from a colleague. Another, also Hermès, costs around US$700. Some, like one called Eagle and another called Daughters of the American Revolution, are patriotic.
Then there’s the scarf featuring a cherry blossom motif, which may or may not be a reference to BrainDead, a TV show in which aliens living in Washington’s cherry trees take over the minds of politicians. It seems likelier that Dr Birx had the Northern Hemisphere spring on her mind – but who knows?
Reuters also contributed to this report.
