Hermes Scarf - Orgauphone

 

 

This is the last of my 2012 Christmas scarves! I have googled high and low, but can’t find any information about it whatsoever (most of the hits for Orgauphone are about homelessness in Australia and similar such things – very interesting and worthy, no doubt, but not really relevant to the topic on hand). Nor does it appear to be particularly popular – not a single blog features it, except as part of listings of scarves. It isn’t anybody’s ‘grail scarf’, which is a pity, because it is a very beautiful and interesting scarf.

 

 

Perhaps it is the obscurity of its title - Orgauphone et autres meccaniques?  I looked in all sorts of dictionaries, including my 1919 Webster which weighs 8kg (that’s an awful lot of words, surely not many were missed off?), but have not found a single entry on ‘orgauphone’.
 



Then I looked up the translation for Barrel Organ (Drehorgel) and found Orgue de Barbarie. The trouble is, ‘orgauphone’ need not refer to the barrel organ featured in the lower half of the scarf, but could refer to the organ pipes in the centre, which may or may not depict another barrel organ! 

 



 



 Perhaps an ‘orgauphone’ is one of the many ingenious devices spawned in the 19^th century, a mechanical device for creating organ music – remember the pianola, a self-playing piano?  Just a few days ago I saw a little heap of old pianola roles at the flea market. These are long roles of paper with holes stamped into them.  They are connected to the piano, and as the paper rolls along different piano keys are activated to play a tune.  I remember once visiting a lovely couple in Vermont who had inherited a pianola.  The husband told me that it cost $500 in its day, as much as a new Ford motor car, and his parents decided to buy the pianola rather than the motor car when they had saved enough money.

 

 

Perhaps one day I will be able to pierce the clouds of obscurity which hover around this mysterious scarf, but for today I shall have to leave you with only the photos of this beautiful bit of history to contemplate.

 

 

All I can tell you that it was issued in 1996, in the jacquard weave, featuring a key (the musical key – the only scarf which features this particular weave, I believe), and was designed by Francoise Faconnet (who also designed the Daimyo scarf, by the way).

 



 For some reason perhaps best left unexplained I only like certain colourways for certain scarves. Orgauphone, as far as I am concerned, must be red.  Not black or blue or yellow or beige –perhaps green or a rich pink?  No, not really.  It is red or nothing.  That’s why it took me so long to acquire this scarf, they tend to be blue or black, not red. 

 

 



I wanted it particularly to wear during organ concerts, like the one I attended after the new organ was installed in the chapel of Keble College.  Wonderful wonderful organ!  I remember going to a service there one evening, where the vicar sang part of the service, and it was like being in another world.  The current Chaplain has a very pure clear high voice, and in the candle-lit atmosphere of the magnificent chapel her singing took me out of myself and into a gentle spiritual realm of pure beauty.  Perhaps I am not saying this very well, the trouble with such experiences is that I lose myself in them, and am in no state to take notes and pass on the information later.Indeed I am in no state to do anything at all, except sit there and enjoy the experience.  Sort of like meditating, I suppose.