Hermès Festival des Metiers: Silk Scarves

March 13, 2011  |  Chicago Street Fashion, Fashion Events, Gold Coast, Hermes, Streetstyle
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Hermes scarves on display

It is no surprise that Hermès is one of my favorite brands to feature on Chicago Streetstyle Scene. So imagine my delight when I heard about the Festival des Metiers (Festival of Crafts) to be held at the Oak Street boutique. I was beyond overjoyed at the chance to see how my favorite luxury goods are made. Even better, I was invited to the private VIP opening party on Thursday night to celebrate the event. Personally, I own two Hermès items – the limited-edition Chicago scarf in fuchsia and a light blue twilly.

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My limited-edition Chicago scarf

I am obsessed with Hermès textiles so I spent most of my time at the Hermès private opening party watching the expert silk screener create a scarf from start to finish. Below are photos from each step of the process. This was definitely the most popular presentation of the evening.

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Attendees watching the scarf demonstration

1. Step one: the artist creates the scarf design.

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2. A second artist uses ink to draw each color on a different transparent sheet. Through a translator, she explained how difficult it is to take a multicolored design and think in terms of gray. The way the silk screening process works is that each color is laid down separately. The metal screens are created using these stencils.
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3. When the scarves are ready to be printed, the first metal plate is laid down on a moving rail. Up to 50 scarves are printed in one single line like this. 
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4. The screener moves from each silk square one-by-one, using a squeegee to transfer the dye through the plate onto the silk.

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5. The scarf outline is always the first design laid down in black dye.
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6. The darkest colors are laid down first. This is a burgundy purple dye for the third layer. The second run was actually the Hermes copyright, which is done separately because the accent mark requires a different consistency of ink)
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7. Pushing the dye through the screen in one fell swoop.
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8. The scarf after three runs.
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9. Explaining how the silk is gathered from the silkworm cocoon.
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10. The finished product after over twenty dyes are applied to the silk.

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NYC… Hermes Belt

March 12, 2011  |  Chicago Street Fashion, Chicago Street Style, Hermes, Individuals, Lincoln Center, New York, Streetstyle
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Do you even have to ask what I love most about her look? Didn’t think so.

The Style Tribe

March 12, 2011  |  Amy's Friends, Chicago Street Fashion, Chicago Street Style, Fashion Events, Individuals, Socialites
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Three Tribe Members at Borris Powell’s Show: Nicole, Corri, and Jena

The Style Tribe is Chicago’s newest favorite personal style blog. The website is a hybrid between a street style and a personal style blog and features one of the five women each day of the week; my good friend and ChiCityFashion blogger Jena Gambaccini, local entrepreneur Corri McFadden, Nicole, Erin, and Bridget. I love the concept for including a group of women. In my opinion, personal style blogs can get a little stale because it’s always the same person. So including a group of fashionable women, each of whom posts once a week, avoids that blogging pitfall.

I mentioned The Style Tribe earlier this week in my post about the Gilt City Chicago warehouse sale, but these ladies looked so fashionable at Borris Powell’s show tonight that I had to give them their own post!

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