Earlier this year, before the new Spring/Summer 2023 Hermès scarf designs began to appear online, I had already decided that I was not going to purchase any more scarves or shawls of any size until the price fell, if it ever did. That was a firm decision.

Really, it was…

Definitely…

Oh well, my firm “resolution” lasted a few weeks! One of the new scarves began to attract my attention. I quickly realised that I loved it in many of the colourways. This is very unusual for me as one colourway usually stands out beyond the rest, but this scarf looked wonderful across the board.

Eventually, I decided that one particular scarf might work with my wardrobe with the scarf’s blues, silver grey and purples. That scarf is Tulipomanie designed by Aline Honoré, 90cm silk twill, colourway #02 Argent, Violet, Bleu, Ref: H003964S 02.

Description

The scarf in a beautiful study of different kinds of tulips. The flowers are arranged on a plain background with space between them so that an onlooker can distinguish between each carefully drawn tulip. Every bloom is a gorgeous delight of colour, contrast and shading. Some of the scarves have a wide variety of colours, others, such as #16, have a more limited palette. In this case, oranges and greys. I also loved the scarf with the pink background, #03, but, as my previous purchase was Robe Légère with a similar pink background, I felt like I had to ignore this!

The colourway that I chose, #02, has a pale silver-grey background and the tulips are drawn in shades of blue, purple, violet, pink, and yellow. Some of the flowers are of the full-blown “parrot” varieties, others have the stripes associated with “viridiflora” types; some are tightly furled, others have wide open petals. The whole scarf is a study in colour and pattern.

NB: Please let me know if you notice any inaccuracies in my writing about tulips. I know that I love them, but am also aware that I don’t know enough about them!

Colourways

These are the colourways for the Spring/Summer 2023 silk twill 90cm scarves. I have added in the codes to help those of you who may wish to purchase a scarf.

Design story

This has been taken from the Hermès website:

Details

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

How I wear the scarf

As I have only just bought the scarf, I have not had much opportunity to wear it. I have, however, taken photos to show a variety of scarf knots (see the next section). This time I decided to try the scarf with different cashmere jumpers in a range of colours. You can see how the scarf reacts to differing background colours…

The cashmere sweaters are from Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Pure Collection and WoolOvers and in the colours: navy, light grey, purple and lilac.

Scarf ties

I have tried on this scarf in a variety of ways. At the moment, as it is so new, the silk fabric is very crisp and stiff so doesn’t fall easily into soft folds. Anyway, you can get the general idea of how it looks when worn. The mother-of-pearl scarf ring is by MaiTai.

I don’t know all of the names of these scarf ties, but here goes:

From the top left, downwards: cowboy cowl knot, cowboy knot, half bow knot.
Centre, downwards: asymmetric wrap, cowl knot.
Top right, downwards: something I made up (!), criss-cross knot, something else I don’t have a name for 😂😂😂.

Background information

I tried to find some background information about the wonderful artist, Aline Honoré, but could not find anything worth posting here. It is about time someone wrote a piece about her work! Instead, I have listed a few sources of information about tulips themselves, plus something about Tulip Mania.

Amsterdam Tulip Museum: The Tulip
https://amsterdamtulipmuseum.com/tulip/
Interesting information about these gorgeous flowers.

BBC Gardener’s World Magazine: How to Grow Tulips
https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-tulips/
Detailed and useful pages with plenty of videos.

Royal Horticultural Society: Tulip
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/tulip
Set of pages about these flowers with information about the types of tulip and how to grow them.

Wikipedia: Tulips
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip
A comprehensive article about the flower.

Amsterdam Tulip Museum: Holland and Tulipmania
https://amsterdamtulipmuseum.com/topics/holland-and-tulipmania/
A set of interesting articles about this phenomenon.

English Heritage: Tulips through time: from “Mania” to “Mainstream”
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/blog/blog-posts/tulips-time-mania-mainstream/
Blog post on the history of tulips and where to visit them in the UK.

Farmer Gracy: Tulip Mania, the “Bubble” Caused by the Love of Flowers
https://www.farmergracy.co.uk/blogs/farmer-gracys-blog/tulip-mania-the-bubble-caused-by-the-love-of-flowers
Beautiful photos of tulips in this blog post.

Wikipedia: Tulipmania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
A very detailed article.

And, of course, there are numerous videos of the wonderful displays of tulips and the growing fields in The Netherlands. In fact, there are so many that I couldn’t decide which ones to post here, so I have left that search to you! Have fun 😊.

I hope readers have found this exploration of Tulipomanie 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