The Silk Road Of Hermes

Leather and silk are the lifeblood of Hermes, and the classic words of leather need not be duplicated.

From 1937 to the present, more than 70 years ago, Hermes used beautiful lines and difficult colors to depict one brilliant illusion in a scarf and become a king in the scarf country.

Strong European aristocratic temperament

In 1937, it was 100th anniversary of its total.

Over the next few decades, Hermes has made painstaking efforts in designing. Even in a variety of scarves, you can recognize its unique temperament only by one eye: blurred and retro, full of gorgeous imagination of the East, always with a touch of the Middle East and North Africa.

It originated from the early nineteenth Century, to the early twentieth Century, and the nobility of Europe's longing for the East. They were all keen to travel and work in their countries in the North Africa, the Middle East and even far east, and enjoy the exotic customs. This aesthetic interest deeply affected the silk scarf pattern of Hermes.

Today, Hermes will launch two scarves series each year.

Luxury made by hand time

The silk scarves of Hermes have become the luxuries of silk scarves, not only in the beauty of their designs, but also in the way of pattern design - high precision and pure handwork.

Before 1948, the Hermes scarf took the process of engraving. It was difficult to avoid flaws due to technical problems.

And in the eleventh year of the Hermes scarf, Emile Hermes's son-in-law Robert Dumas (Figure 3) discovered a new screen and template printing technology, which made the pigment printed on 90 square square scarves no longer damaged by mutual immersion.

This technology needs manual layering and color printing, which is similar to that in ancient China.

As we all know, there are as many as 40 colors on a Hermes scarf. After that, the 40 colors need to be professionally classified and dispensed. They are colored in 40 times (Figure 1) to ensure that the printing and dyeing are uniform and clean.

As a result, carving an ordinary square towel takes 500 to 600 hours.

After the printing and dyeing process is finished, it is also manually cut and curled. This process takes 45 minutes on each scarf.

The hand-made production process is still doggedly adhering to the Hermes scarf, and it is the 18 month production cycle of each scarf that has been given to it in this era of rapid reproduction.

So people often sigh: these scarves are not perfunctory! Every piece is like a complete picture. It needs to be chewed up for half a day.

Especially those dense and meticulous colors, when people think of silk screen printing, have to be surprised.

At the same time, though the silk scarves of the Hermes are beautiful, they will not be reluctant to be used.

Solid texture, heavy color, and all convey to people a sound, real message, which is another aspect of noble temperament: not just pale and weak, but accurate judgment and without hesitation.

The art feast in Fang Cun

If someone says, in the age of digital design, is the value of the manual time carried on the Hermes scarves worthwhile, but no one can deny it.

Quite a number of artists have been linked to the new silk scarves of Hermes.

Each scarf has its own name, which can tell you an interesting or profound story.

The "Saint Germain swing dance" designed by the artist Jean-Louis Clerc in 1950 depicts the fresh nightclub landscape on the left bank of the Seine River. The "Indian chieftain" designed by Kermit Oliver expresses the social situation of Indian aborigines in the way of polyphonic novels. The dance of Josephine, designed by Cyrille Diatkine, is a tribute to Josephine Becker, a black-and-white tone that looks like a film stills at first glance.

In 2008, Hermes launched the first "artist's square towel" series. This year, this series is cooperated with French artist Daniel Buren.

Daniel selected some of the tens of thousands of photos collected in 1950s and printed them on scarves and added their own borders with their own artistic recognition.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the American installation artist, painter, photographer Hilton McConnico (Figure 2), he has excellent skills in color application, so Hermes began to cooperate with him ten years ago. He designed the flagship building of the Hermes McConnico luxury brand in Tokyo and China as the most classic installation art works.

A brief history of Hermes scarves

In 1937, the first 90 cm square scarf was born "lady and bus".

In 1948, Robert Dumas discovered a new screen printing technology.

In 1951, the fourth generation of family descendants, Robert Dumas, became the leader of Hermes and named Carre for the Hermes scarf, and actively developed scarf products.

In 2007, in order to celebrate the birth of the square scarf 70th anniversary, Hermes Hermes skillfully spent "Xin Si" and launched a 70 x 70cm square scarf.

In 2008, Hermes scarves and Josef Albers launched the first "artist's scarf" series - "the scarf".

In 2010, Hermes merged different classics into the new series of designs. The SilkcityBag made of scarves attracted widespread attention.