Hermès is known for its hand-stitched bags named after such style icons as Grace Kelly and Jane Birken, but there’s more to the brand than its leather goods.
When the Paris-based retailer opens a store in the NorthCreek development in Denver this week, it will sell 14 merchandise categories, including clothing, jewelry, accessories, home items, fragrances — and its famed silk scarves.
The Hermès scarf is as much a fashion classic as a Burberry trench coat, Gucci loafers or a Cartier tank watch. The late Princess Grace of Monaco and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were often photographed wearing the scarves. The style has been passed on to current mavens like Sarah Jessica Parker.
In his book “A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style,” Tim Gunn refers to Hermès as the “king” of silk scarves “with connotations of wealth and luxury.”
Playing Queen Elizabeth in the movie “The Queen,” Helen Mirren wore Hermès scarves. And white Hermès scarves were a daily accessory for fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the book and movie “The Devil Wears Prada.” But there was an unbelievable quality to that habit: Why wear white when Hermès is known for its artful prints that can require dozens of colors and a painstaking screening process?
Hermès has been making scarves since 1937, using silk twill from Lyon that is both sturdy and supple. The company has long collaborated with artists, commissioning them to create patterns and designs that can be anything from classic to modern.
Equestrian and travel themes are perennials, says public relations director Bernice Kwok-Gabel, since Hermès started in 1837 as a saddle and harness maker and later added luggage. (By the way, she says she learned to pronounce the company’s name from creative director Jean-Louis Dumas, who said to think of it as “congestion at an airport … air-MESS.”)
Each season, 10 to 14 new scarf designs are created on paper, then sent to Hermès workrooms to be engraved, colored and printed. When finished, hems are hand-rolled and stitched.
In addition to the silk squares, Hermès makes cashmere, cotton and mousseline scarves, and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Prices start at about $125 for the long, skinny “twilly,” and reach nearly $700 for shawls. In the middle are the silk squares, usually $265-$375.
Today, when young women wear bulky scarves massed at their throats like security blankets, a beautifully printed scarf worn casually about the neck projects a stylish simplicity and confidence.
Wearing them as QE2 does — covering the hair and tied primly under the chin — can look dated, as does folding a big square scarf into a triangle, draping it over the shoulders and letting it fall down the back. But there are endless rolls and folds, drapes and knots, as well as such forever- chic ways of wearing the scarves, such as tying one to a purse handle, looping it over a ponytail or fashioning it into a sarong or halter top.
Gunn recommends wearing an Hermès with insouciance. “The silk scarf is a piece that definitely benefits from a ‘This old thing?’ approach,” he writes. “You know, running to catch the train, you dash out of the house and knot it carelessly around your neck. You arrive looking flushed and fabulous.”Hermes opens Thursday at 105 Fillmore St.; 303-388-0700;
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697 or sbrown@denverpost.com
Memories of a prize from a Paris morning 25 years ago
From the entrance at No. 24, the line stretched for two blocks down rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoreè in Paris. It was a chilly early spring morning in 1984 and the neighborhood of chic shops and businesses was empty save for the dozens of women queued up.
Neatly groomed French matrons in slim skirts and 1-inch heels predominated, followed by what looked to be stylish secretaries and a smattering of foreign tourists, including our little group of American fashion journalists in town to cover the French ready-to-wear shows. We had been up filing stories until the wee hours, but were more than happy to skip our petit dejeuner and the morning fashion shows for what had become known as the sale of the year.
Hermes opened the doors of its flagship store on Paris’ right bank twice a year to sell silk scarves and ties at half-price. Getting the details about the sale was like cracking the code to a safe loaded with designer loot. A British fashion editor told us about it. Arrive an hour too late, and you’d leave empty- handed, she warned.
The sales are now held off-site, but in those days, we were summoned to the mother ship, the company’s capacious store, workrooms and corporate headquarters since 1880.
The main floor of the store housed handbags and luggage, scarves and men’s ties arrayed in artful displays. In the rooms above, leather workers and hardware specialists were at their benches and tables.
When we thought we couldn’t stand in the cold any longer, the doors finally opened and the once-polite crowd stormed inside, running toward bins that held hundreds of colorful squares of silk. Women grabbed the goods as if they were $1 cotton hankies instead of scarves that would set them back $50 a pop. There wasn’t much time to compare patterns or evaluate the quality — was it a second? — because as soon as you set one scarf down, someone beside you would snap it up.
I should have splurged, but came away with just one scarf that day — a beauty in lavender, purple and gold in a Japanese equestrian theme.
I still have it, a 34-inch square that in the past 20 years I’ve worn on my head, around my neck, circling my waist and as a hip wrap. I mostly keep it stored with my other scarves, its pedigree superior to the department-store silk and chiffon pieces in the drawer. I haven’t worn it much in the past few years, but always get compliments when I do.
I don’t know if I like it more because it was a good deal that I had to fight for, or because it’s an authentic Hermès.
Either way, it’s a prize from a long-ago morning in Paris. Suzanne S. Brown
