The Librain……retired

I love this scarf so much! It is my fantasy of how my own English garden should look with gorgeous trees in blossom, beautifully planted flower beds in bloom, ponds and structures with animals, insects and birds moving across the scene. This is another fine design by Alice Shirley for Hermès’ Spring/Summer 2015 season.

Dans un Jardin Anglais 90cm by Alice Shirley for Hermès

My colourway, #14, has a most beautiful deep lilac colour background with shades of purple, aqua, orange, green and brown. This is another uplifting scarf, setting a happy Spring or Summer mood. This scarf is quite extraordinary in that each colourway looks so completely different. Some invoke a season, with rich Autumnal colour, Spring blossom or a cold Winter landscape. Other colourways evoke a more whimsical mood. The design is also special in that it goes diagonally across the scarf and so ties in very interesting ways, showing the plants and animals at their best, rather than upside down as happens with other scarf designs.

I have both a 90cm silk twill and a twilly; there are also 140 silk mousselines and the 45cm gavroche size, the latter released for SS 2017.

Dans un Jardin Anglais twilly by Alice Shirley for Hermès

This was my first and, so far, only twilly. I really wanted more colourways, this one is #03, but they never seemed to appear online at the right time. I may also get one of the gavroches soon! I cannot get enough of this design.

Here we have the gorgeous colourways for the 90cm size. Can you see what I mean about the seasonal effects of the colours chosen?

Some of the silk mousseline colourways:

The gavroche colourways have also been lovely:

Colourways for the twilly:

Design story:

What finer invitation to wander at leisure, than an English country garden? Designed by Nature herself, recreating the happy accidents of the natural scene, its unimagined alliances and improvised paths… Gardens à l’anglaise first made their appearance in France in the 18th century, ushering in a new sense of freedom – a space where nature and nurture could meet and mingle, threaded with flower-lined paths winding between shrubberies, clusters of trees, plants and rocks, leading to a striking viewpoint, a water feature, a bridge, a ruin, a dead tree… A place for surprises and dreams; a place of unending fascination. Alice Shirley’s design perfectly expresses the bucolic charm of every English garden: a rustic scene peopled with deer and birds. A zig-zag path leads to the top of a flight of mossy steps, and a flowery arch – the gate of Paradise, perhaps! Where better to roam at will, sampling fresh delights, taking time to dream… Alice Shirley’s English garden embodies the true art of the French flâneur.

The details on this scarf and twilly are so cute!

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I have shown this lovely scarf once on the blog and the twilly several times.

Dans un Jardin Anglais – Hermès – collage #01

The 90cm looks lovely with a range of clothing and accessory colours including aqua, as in the above Lands’ End cotton jumper, purple, lilac, blue and teal. I have lots of bangles in my Halcyon Days collection and also leather wrap bracelets which set the scarf off nicely.

Here is the scarf and the twilly again in a range of ties. I am intending to replace this collage in the future as the light has been too gloomy to take new photos with the better camera on my new iPad.

Dans un Jardin Anglais in a range of scarf ties.

As you can see, the twilly can be worn around the neck and it looks very cute, but I also like to tie it to my Massaccesi handbag. This colourway looks best with an autumnal or winter palette of blues and browns.

Dans un Jardin Anglais twilly – Hermès – collage #01

Here is the twilly tied to my bag. I would love to have got the twilly in other colourways, but they never seemed to appear on the website and I cannot travel to a boutique. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to get one from a reseller site in the future.

Dans un Jardin Anglais twilly by Hermès tied on Massaccesi handbag

Here we have some other people’s reactions to this scarf. Firstly, a YouTube video from Hermes:

Alice Shirley: Dans un Jardin Anglais
Some of the original artwork from Shirley’s own website.

I hope readers have found this journey around the Dans un Jardin Anglais scarf family interesting and useful. The next Scarf of the Moment post will be about Under the Waves in two weeks time.

Best wishes,

❤️💙💜💛💚