The process of making Hermès scarves

Throughout its long history, the Hermès scarf has attracted many rich and famous people: Queen Elizabeth II, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, Sharon Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hillary Clinton, Mariah Carey, Elle McPherson and Madonna. 

One scarf is being sold every 20 seconds.

Grace Kelly

Queen Elizabeth II

I was just wondering what makes Hermès scarves that exquisite and expensive... and of course it lies all in the THE CRAFTMANSHIP.

The process of making silk scarves is relatively complex and time-consuming, it will take people about 18 months to use the silk scarf’s topic, design, match colors, make out the plate, color printing as well as curling by hand and other process. An ordinary silk scarf is woven by the silk spit from the five to six silkworms, while a Hermes silk scarf is made out by eight silkworms’ silk, in doing so, the silk scarf’s draping sense would be stronger, and its effect would be more three-dimensional after it is folded.

Firstly, it would be the color matching. Use a variety of pigments to make out the dyestuff used in the printing. Then mix the pigments together in accordance with the formula proportion, and then cooking and heating them. Each mixed dyestuff is gone through so many checks by the professional technical personnel so as to ensure the made-out silk scarf’s color is the same as that on the sample. 

Secondly, it would be plate making. Once the scarf patterns are finalized, the technical personnel should carefully make the plate of each color on the silk scarf pattern, and paint out the every detail of the pattern on the transparent paper, to ensure that all the colors can overprint accurately, so that it can make out the predetermined pattern. In addition to time consuming, this process also requires the relative personnel’s high degree of patience and sensitive sense for colors. According to statistics, the plate making for one scarf can be up to about 600 hours.

Third, it should be the turn of color printing. After finishing each color’s plate making, the dyeing craftsmen thus begin to print color. The colored silk scarves thus have become the rare art works. After the silk scarf is printed, they would use the steam bath to do the color setting, and then remove glue which plays the fixation role on the color. Watch the video: 

The final step is the curling. After printing, each scarf is cut into the proper size, and then it is washed, dried and other solid-color process, the skilled artisan begins to do the artificial curling for scarf. After that, the process of silk scarf is perfectly done.

Every year, Hermès releases two silk scarf collections featuring a dozen designs in each. While some of the designs are new ones, there are also several older prints that are produced with a new array of colors. In addition, limited edition prints are released periodically. Some of the designs that have been featured over the years include equestrian drawings, banners, coats of arms, French cuisine and flora and fauna, among many others. The company also releases two collections annually of scarves made from a silk and cashmere blend.

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