Hermés pocket squares, also known as gavroches, are 45×45 cms of gorgeous silk twill. They can look so cute and are quite versatile. I like them as they add a fun finishing touch to many outfits and work well with my mainly casual wardrobe. So far, I own five:

My Hermès gavroche collection

Clockwise from top left: Savana Dance, Bibliothéque, Bateau Fleuri, Zebra Pegasus and Appaloosa des Steppes.

I used to have a fairly slim, long neck, but unfortunately it has thickened in recent years as I have put on a lot of weight with my illness. This means that some of the ways of tying gavroches don’t work well for me as these make the fabric too tight and uncomfortable. These are the ways that I like wearing my gavroches:

Hermès gavroches – scarf ties

Um, well I looked through all of my selfies and realised that I couldn’t find much variety in how I wear these pocket squares! I tend to wear them in the same way most of the time – as in the bottom left image in the collage above. So, I began to think about what I could do about this. After all, Hermès scarves, in any size, are far from cheap and as I have invested quite a lot of cash in my small collection, I want to make the most of all of my scarves.

That became a bit of a puzzle and so I turned to that fount of all scarf knowledge, The Purse Forum (link in the right-hand sidebar), for more information. On there I could see that many members use a particular scarf ring, the Mors, to extend the size of a gavroche to make a bit more space around the neck. This is the one (it comes in both silver and gold tone):

Hermès Mors scarf ring

But then I looked at the price – £145! I simply could not justify spending that much on a scarf ring. Also, I thought that I would not like that much metal near my neck. Other people love it of course and look great wearing scarves tied using this ring. It can be used for a wide range of scarf sizes and types. But perhaps it is not for me.

Anyway, I thought more about this issue and after a while came up with a very cheap and easy alternative idea. The Mors has a single ring at one end and a double at the other. I had a look on eBay and found some D-rings that would work for my plan. They are extremely low cost and come in a variety of sizes and colours. Mine are about 1.5cm in both directions.

I then realised that the Hermès Bolduc ribbon would fit on these rings really nicely. And, boy, do I have a lot of that collected over the years! This is what I mean:

D-rings and Bolduc ribbon

Cut the length of ribbon that would work for you. This is entirely subjective! I chose to have a finished item of about 15cm as this fits nicely across the back of my neck. I simply put two D-rings at each end, wrapped the ribbon around and then sewed it all together. Easy-peasy!

Finished article – my “contraption”!

To use this “contraption” to tie your scarf, simply fold the scarf into a triangle and then pass one of the ends up through the double D-ring and back through a single D-ring and pull the scarf fairly firmly to tighten, like this:

How to tie the scarf end

Put the scarf around your neck and do the same with the other end of the scarf. To make everything more secure, you could knot the scarf ends off, like this:

Knot the scarf end

For variety, instead of using Bolduc, other kinds of ribbon would work well too and you could tone the colour of the ribbon with your favourite scarves. If you hate sewing, you could even simply knot your ribbon to the D-rings! I think that would work, although you might have to deal with rather too many knots behind your neck.

Using ribbons to make more “contraptions”

Anyway, this is the difference that using my “contraption” makes to my usual scarf tie for the gavroche. I like this a lot as it gives me more versatility and shows off more of the scarf. Long hair or a shirt or jacket collar would also hide the device nicely. Now to try it with other scarf knots for my pocket squares!

Bibliothéque tied using the “contraption”

You may remember the image at the top left in the collage above? This one…

Hermès Zebra Pegasus gavroche

Zebra Pegasus was my first gavroche and I cheated when I took this picture as the scarf was simply draped around my neck without actually being tied. I might try to replicate this look using my new device. I will update the blog as and when I use it to make new scarf knots.

BTW, can anyone think of a good name for it. I can’t keep using the words contraption or device for it as this sounds more than odd. Rather Victorian in fact!

I hope that readers have enjoyed this post and found it interesting and useful.

Best wishes,

💚💛💜💙❤