DURING MY CHILDHOOD in the Chicago suburbs, every day was a hair-bow day. Piano recitals and church on Sundays were cause for embellishment, sure, but so were apple picking and playing soccer. So my heart skipped a beat when, decades later, in my capacity as a fashion reporter, I watched the hair adornment come down the spring 2016 Oscar de la Renta runway in its simplest form—black and loosely tied. Since then, hair bows, once the territory of girlish characters like Hello Kitty, have become a signature for fashionable women like Ariana Grande and Kate Middleton. I have eagerly tried them in many forms,...