During the last year I amassed six 'grails' - can there be more than one? - which I designated as either Christmas presents (the jacquards) or birthday presents (the others). I also made the extremely depressing (though financially beneficial) discovery that I now own most of the scarves I really really lust after. It is true that there are one or two still floating around on Ebay which I would not kick out of my Scarf-Treasury (chest of drawers) if they miraculously turned up there, but I have now spent three months trawling the scarf boutiques of the world without coming across a scarf I 'must have' and have to reluctantly conclude that I have completely cornered the market - I have reached saturation point! The end of an era .....
Whenever I am in the grip of an overwhelming passion, I tend to overdo things a little, but never go completely off the rails (with one notable exception, obviously). I remember when I was on the pot-craze; bought le Creuset pots like there was no tomorrow, until I ran out of space and had to admit that I needed no more. In the months to follow I then de-cluttered two pots I did not really need, and since then have neither added nor subtracted from the collection - an equilibrium has been achieved. This is fairly typical of my crazes; I acquire what I need with ingenious efficiency, and end up with 20% more than I need. Then I stop. I am not a collector - I always stop. I am able to own eleven volumes of a twelve volume set of books and pass up the twelfth if I don't like it, never mind that it leaves me with an incomplete set.
Regarding the scarves, they are good to collect because they take up little space, can be used on a daily basis, appeal to my artistic inclinations, and, in the case of Hermes, seem to hold their value better than stocks & shares. Unfortunately I like their older scarves better than the new ones, and I am extremely particular as to what I like. Even the old ones rarely meet my stringent criteria, especially now that I have the basics covered and buy strictly for aesthetic appeal.
The scarf I shall feature in this post, La Comedie Italienne, is a jacquard, my favourate material, which is no longer used by Hermes (except for some monochrome scarves recently). This scarf usually has a white background with a coloured frame - not something I like, because I am not into so much colour contrast (very tricky to match), and when you wash it there is every chance that the colour from the surround will bleed into the main white part of the scarf and ruin it. Only twice have I seen this scarf with a coloured background - once in fuchsia which I don't like and once in green. I bought the green one, from Japan, and love it.
Step forward, Christmas present number 1!
I am not going to discuss the details of this scarf, because it is described very well on the following link (you need to scroll down a bit before you get to it):
