Symbolic headwraps are worn worldwide

NEW YORK (AP) -- An unheralded fashion staple is finally getting its due with "Headwraps" (Public Affairs Books), a globe-trotting book about the influence of the functional, often beautiful garment.
Author Georgia Scott, an art director at The New York Times who also took the photos for the book, traveled to 32 countries in researching the significance of the garments and found them in such far-flung places as India, Europe, China, Malaysia, Nigeria and Morocco.
Scott recounts her journeys and the strikingly different headwraps she encountered that ranged in meaning from a nod to African ancestry in the United States to a symbol of national pride in the Czech Republic. In the United Arab Emirates, the way a woman wears her headscarf indicates her country of origin Scott says.