A silk scarf is a treasure, a work of art, a labour of love. But when was the last time you actually wore one? Tying it to the handle of your bag doesn’t count.  In a parallel universe, we’d all be knotting our Hermès scarves under our chins and slipping behind the wheel of our 1955 Sunbeam Alpines as we roar along the Grande Corniche between Monte Carlo and Cannes, with Cary Grant whispering witticisms into our ears.  But we’re not in a 1955 Sunbeam, and while many have tried to emulate Grace Kelly’s insouciant knack with a head scarf, most have failed. Abjectly so. The scarf-as-neckerchief tactic? Even trickier, if you ask me. The time simply isn’t right for a Margo-from-The-Good-Life revival. For some of us it may never be.  So what to do with the scarves that one is occasionally fortunate enough to be gifted by dowager aunts or corporate clients?  Why, appreciate them of course. These are genuinely artistic achievements. An Hermès scarf might be the accumulation of 800 hours of work. Firstly the company has to select its artist. It meets with around 100 a year and has 50 freelancers working on new ideas at any one time. You’d think the 2,000 designs Hermès already has in its archives would be sufficient – the company has been in the business of scarves since 1937. But no, each year, Hermès produces another 20 patterns, in different colour ways. It’s a collector’s charter.  And really, once you learn how they’re made you can’t help but be wooed. There’s the screen printing, engraving, colouring…and the winding of the silk skeins, all of which are produced in Brazil where they are experts in softness apparently. From those Mulberry trees (it takes 15kg of Mulberry leaves to fuel the moth that lays enough silk worms to make one silk Hermès scarf), to the artisans painstakingly hand stitching and hand rolling those silky edges in Hermès’ Lyon workshop, that’s a huge amount of endeavour.  So the least you can do is use them. Scratchy head time – until I saw the Hermès job-lot a friend of mine had inherited from her mother. A life’s worth of neck-ticklers had been expertly framed with generous mounts, and an entire wall of her house transformed into Tate Modern.  Since then, I have found my own scarf framers (e17arthouse.com) and I too have become a gallerista. It's a pricy path, but it seems criminal to lock them away in drawers. There’s the framed Gucci Flora scarf; the Paul Smith Cuba street scene; a Dolce and Gabbana Venetian vignette; a psychedelic Pucci and a couple of Hermès. The pleasure they now give...just call me the Scarf-chi Gallery.
Few can pull off the Grace Kelly look, but it’s criminal to keep Hermès in hiding. Lisa Armstrong has a solution for those wondering what to do with their silk scarves