The moment that I first heard of this scarf I knew that I would be buying it! Anyone who knows me will be aware that, apart from gorgeous scarves (and my friends and family, of course), my greatest love is tea drinking. So, when I saw this design, it immediately went on my list.

Early in the Autumn/Winter 2021 Hermès season, I saw all of the 70cm designs for the scarf on The Purse Forum site. By the time that I had saved up enough money to actually purchase, all of the colourways had disappeared from the UK Hermès website. I was lucky enough to spot the reappearance of the orange/gris/blanc, colourway #08, of Tea Time by Jonathan Burton and immediately bought it.

Description

This scarf has a fun and whimsical design on a lighter, softer silk than its silk twill 90cm cousins. The smaller size has a more casual and playful vibe which matches perfectly with the subject matter.

First of all, we have a gorgeous shade of orange for the background. The rolled hem is in a slightly deeper shade with neatly placed white dots. Across the background, small white hearts are evenly spaced out. They must represent biscuits, as a few appear to have had a bite taken out! In addition, others are being “dunked” into pretty china teacups. Very familiar to British tastes!

In the centre of the scarf, there is a large heart shape. For this version of the scarf the heart is in white. We can see that behind the heart there is a horse, in grey, with a white plume on its head and a patterned bridle with even more hearts. The horse is rather strangely shaped because of the heart in front!

On the horse’s back ride the King and Queen of Hearts with their majestic crowns. He holds a steaming pink, orange and white teapot with “Hermès Paris” written on the side. She holds the matching teacup – the steam taking the form of a heart! Their hair is coloured in shades of pink and formed like stylised hearts. The Queen’s dress is in mustard yellow. The monarchs’ other clothing is depicted in shades of grey, with white, black, pink and a touch of red. Next to the Queen we can see a small pink and white butterfly.

To the left side of the central design there is a flagpole bearing a fluttering flag with name of the scarf “Hermès Tea Time”. Where the pole meets the ground line, the name of the designer, Jonathan Burton, appears. Amongst stylised orange clouds the Hermès copyright sign can be seen.

Colourways

These are the colourways for the Autumn/Winter 2021 silk 70cm scarves. I have added in the codes to help those of you who wish to purchase this scarf. The red one at the bottom is a special Hermès Tea Time Medaillons version, which is more expensive.

Also, there is a set of two twillies and a cute twilly ring!

Design story

“What a surprising way to celebrate tea time! A prince takes his belle on a poetic walk through a field of hearts – a love affair, no doubt. In their wake, a discreet butterfly attracts the attention of some riders. What is their destination? Have they managed to escape from a card game or are they on a journey to the edge of their kingdom? Here, the English designer Jonathan Burton, famous for his fantasy universes often inspired by fairy tales, gives pride of place to dreams and romanticism.”

As you can see from this paragraph, I have interpreted the design slightly differently, bringing in aspects of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I have a feeling that Burton, as an English designer, probably intended this! I could be wrong, of course.

Details

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

How I wear the scarf

This is such a fun scarf that I have managed to wear it a couple of times since I purchased it. So far, I have mainly worn it with my grey clothing, but it would also look great with shades of blue and also white.

Scarf ties

As this is a smaller scarf, I don’t think that I will choose the more complex scarf knots. Perhaps those wouldn’t work! Instead, I am planning to look around and see which scarf ties other people use for their 70cms. Anyway, here are a few quick and random attempts (I wish I could take better photos!):

I am not going to name them this time as most don’t have names! As you can see, I tried a couple with some of my MaiTai scarf rings and they seemed to work well. Funny how the horse’s legs keep on appearing!

Oh, I might as well log here that I bought a Halcyon Days bangle to go with this scarf, as I didn’t own any really suitable jewellery. I am also on the lookout for some gold or white heart-shaped earrings – perhaps I can persuade one of my chaps to buy me some for Christmas!

Here is the bangle:

Background information 

This is not the kind of scarf with lots of useful background details, but I have found the following. If I come across any more information, I will add it here…

Jonathan Burton
jonathanburton.net
His official website with loads of wonderful designs, including this one.

Here is an short “unboxing” video from YouTube showing one of the twillies:

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I hope readers have found this exploration of Hermès Tea Time 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.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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