At first glance, the new designs for Hermès Autumn/Winter 2018 season didn’t really appeal to me and I believed that the colourways simply wouldn’t work with my wardrobe. I carried on following the season’s thread on The Purse Forum and, whilst some patterns started to grow on me a little, I remained convinced that I would avoid the whole season and save my money.

Then, I decided to purchase a new Massaccesi handbag, drawn in by a wonderful sale offer. I had been getting so many compliments for my clothes and accessories in shades of purple, especially since allowing my hair to turn fully grey, that I added in more items in those colours. A new handbag completed my purchases.

When it arrived, I thought about “dressing” it up a little and pondered various decorative items before settling on an Hermès twilly – Coup de Fouet au Bloc – and a cute gavroche – Baobab Cat. So here is my Scarf of the Moment post about this lovely design.

Baobab Cat gavroche by the Ardmore Artists for Hermès

Description

The Baobab Cat scarf was designed by the Ardmore Artists for Hermès Autumn/Winter 2018 season. I bought the gavroche size – 45×45 cm – in colourway #05 – which is described as “rose vif/prune/gris” on the website. It is indeed a very, very bright pink!

The design shows a luscious baobab flower, set off-centre, fully open with the lovely petals depicted with painterly swirls of rich colour. In my version, the tips of the pink petals are touched with purple. Rows of dots in white illuminate the shapes, which are picked out with black lines. In the centre of the flower there is a leopard’s head in grey, white and black – rather cute in this small scarf. Surrounding the scarf are long feathers in shades of grey, white and black and the contrast hem is a bright white.

When tied cowboy style, you can choose to highlight a corner showing more or fewer feathers, or the flower petals can come to the fore. The leopard tends to peep out however the scarf is tied! The larger 90cm version would, of course, give the wearer far more tying options than the little gavroche.

Colourways

First of all, here are the colourways of the Autumn/Winter 2018 45cm gavroche:

These are the colourways of the 90cm silk twill:

Design story

This is the design story for the scarf:

A mischievous leopard has slipped into the heart of a baobab flower. For the Zulu kings, this majestic big cat incarnated their noble status, while the baobab represented power and grace. The flowers of this colossal tree only open at dusk, just when the leopard ventures out in search of its prey. The play on composition blends the animal and the plant into a single being, haloed by a crown of white-speckled feathers. The Ardmore artists’ collective works to promote the style and traditional imagery of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, where it was founded by Fée Halsted in 1985.

Details

Here are some closeups of my scarf in a slideshow format:

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How I wear the scarf

I bought this cute scarf to wear, but also to dress up my newest handbag – Massaccesi’s Victoria in amethyst pebbled leather. The scarf looks lovely with most shades of purple and it could also be worn with pink (although that might overwhelm my colouring), grey and, perhaps, navy. I have very few grey clothes, but may start to use this as one of my base/neutral colours in the future to tone in with my grey hair, so the cat and feathers would look great and the strong pink would contrast beautifully.

As I have only worn this gavroche once so far, here is the outfit:

Outfit of the day 16/08/18 with Hermès Baobab Cat gavroche

And this is what the scarf looks like with my new handbag – wonderful, isn’t it? I am so pleased to see how the bag highlights the purple parts of the petals.

Victoria handbag in amethyst pebbled leather by Massaccesi with Hermès Baobab Cat gavroche

When I have worn Baobab Cat with a few more outfits, I will post the collages here for you to see.

Scarf ties

Here are a few scarf knots which work well with this gavroche:

Baobab Cat – scarf ties

1) Top L: necklace knot using the device which lengthens the scarf. I have mentioned this contraption several times before.
2) Bottom L: simple bias fold. Spot my OTT fuchsia flower earrings!
3) Centre: cowboy knot using the device.
4) Top R: cowboy knot.
5) Bottom R: necklace knot.

You can see that this colourway definitely needs lipstick!

Background information

1) Ardmore Artists

Ardmore Ceramics
Origins
Timeline of the Ardmore Artists.
Collaborations
Paragraph about collaboration with Hermès.

House and Leisure
A collaboration to love
Article with lovely photos.

Luxury Media Africa
The Ardmore Ceramics & Design: The SA Brand That Partnered with Hermès
Gorgeous images of the ceramics and textiles designed by these artists.

The Purse Forum
Ardmore Artists Fan Club
A fantastic thread with loads of gorgeous modelling photos of the scarves designed by Ardmore Artists.

2) Baobab trees

Wikipedia
Adansonia digitata
Article about the baobab.

The Baobab: stories about the African Tree of Life
https://baobabstories.com/en/
A whole blog about Baobab trees.

I hope readers have found this exploration of Baobab Cat both interesting and useful. Once again, if you find any errors or have any additional information that I could add, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes,

💗💕💖💕💗