皮具召唤丝绸。丝绸亦呼唤皮具。爱马仕以生产皮具及旅行箱起步，一百年之后依靠在最细腻织物上印花的技术开发了新的产品。丝绸是精致、温柔与轻盈的化身。丝绸身上的时尚足以和时间抗衡，愈久愈美。一如皮具，丝绸总能强烈地展现经纬间最细微的细节变化。丝绸乃是自然织物，独一无二的造物。每每触摸，令人难以忘怀。但丝绸的织造却需要时间，唯大量的时间方能展现它的高贵与华丽。1937年，爱马仕诞生了第一方丝巾，名为“女士和巴士”，从此将爱马仕引入了新的奇遇。在这场关乎每个人的丝绸之旅中，每一款设计都是一次新的出发，一次新的轮回，会有无数邂逅与发现，带来风格与创新上的腾飞。
Leather is an invitation to silk. And vice versa. Exactly one hundred years after its beginnings as a manufacturer of harnesses, saddles and bags, Hermès discovered an entirely different craft, namely printing on the most elegant of materials. Exceptionally soft, supple and light, silk has the sophistication of becoming more beautiful with time and, following in the footsteps of skins, revealing the slightest of nuances with panache. Silk is a natural, unique material. The feel of it is unforgettable. In 1937, the launch of the first scarf, Jeu des omnibus et Dames blanches, marked the beginning of a new adventure for Hermès. A journey in silk, where each creation marks a new beginning, a renewal, an adventure punctuated by encounters, discoveries and new stylistic and creative developments.
七十年来，爱马仕方巾曾系上多少佳人的颈项，走遍世界各地。而各款方巾的图案设计本身就讲述着一次闲游，一段佳话，一处风景⋯⋯从“漂流瓶”到“印第安酋长”，从“亚美尼亚花园”到“赤道”，还有“德克萨斯的动植物”、“地中海”、“肯尼亚明珠”和“墨西哥美人”，带着万千色彩，款款走过不同地域。这些图案设计当然也不会遗忘巴黎、马术和所有巴黎福宝大道24号的标志。宛如明信片，这些珍贵的方巾让人游走世界，探究不为人知晓的游历，踏出另一条丝绸之路，今天回至中国大地。
For seventy years, Hermès scarves have been travelling the world. The perfect accessory around the necks of elegant women, their motifs tell of an escapade, recount a story, describe a landscape…From Bouteilles à la mer to Pani la Shar Pawnee, via Les Jardins d’Arménie, Équateur, Faune et Flore du Texas, Méditerranée, Perles du Kenya and Belles du Mexique, they frequently evoke countries, lands and distant realms in a thousand and one colours. Even so, these designs never forget Paris, the equestrian world and all the emblems of the House at 24, Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Imaginary postcards, these precious scarves have the power to make minds wander, trace original journeys, and invent a new silk route that today returns yet again to China.
所有一切都源于这片亚洲热土，就在桑树底下，丝丝线线，把我们带回公元前2640年。传说黄帝的妻子西陵氏，某日正在品茶小憩。突然，一团白色的东西从天而下，正落入她的茶盅。原来是一枚煮沸过了的蚕茧。夫人于是从头上取下发簪，想要将其从茶盅里取出。不料，发簪却勾住了一根长长的丝线，细得令人无法置信⋯⋯丝绸的故事就这样开始广为传播。在三千多年的历史中，蚕丝业的秘诀却一直被珍藏在丝绸的诞生地，令人嫉妒。
For the most enchanting of natural fibres, it all started in Asia in the year 2640 BC, under the dappled light of a mulberry tree. Legend holds that Hsi-Ling-Shi, wife of Emperor Hoang-Ti, was relaxing in her garden taking her tea when a small white lump fell into her cup. It was a cocoon, a chrysalis nest… scalded. The princess, who tried to remove it using a hairpin, only succeeded in extracting a very long, unbelievable fine thread… So it is that the story of silk began and, for approximately thirty countries, the secrets of sericulture remained jealously guarded in their native land.
中国神奇的丝绸从此成为贸易红线，无数人由此邂逅相识。生丝甚至成为草原游牧民族的货币。牧民们又将生丝带往了其他地方：拜占庭、西西里亚、罗马、威尼斯、热那亚、佛罗伦撒、科摩，最后来到了里昂。就是在几个世纪之后的里昂，爱马仕开始接触丝绸业，如创业之初的学徒般满怀着崇敬、好奇、挚爱与恒心。爱马仕知道，这最精致的丝线不是一天纺成的。为了让自己的双手更为灵巧，为了印出最灿烂的图案，为了表现最丰富的色彩，爱马仕唯有与时间为伴，不懈地一次又一次努力，直到收获至善至美。
Nevertheless, this mysterious Chinese silk eventually served as link for both commercial exchanges and men; Untreated tangles of it, called raw silk, became a trade currency among the nomadic peoples of the Steppes, who took them to numerous trade posts. And so it arrived on the market stalls of Byzantium, at the workshops of Sicily, then in Rome, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Como and, finally, Lyon where , centuries later , Hermès would learn the basics of silk crafts with the respect, curiosity, passion and patience of a young apprentice. This delicate fibre never reveals itself in just one day. It takes time to win its “hand”, make a good impression and master its bursts of colour, not to mention continuously starting anew in the hope of achieving perfection.
Émile Hermès是爱马仕创始者的孙辈。他的女婿Robert Dumas于1948年带领麾下的工匠艺人，把在镂花模板上印刷的技术运用到九十厘米见方的丝巾上。因此，色块间的接缝问题不再出现，任何的图案都可以被印刷到丝巾上。色彩的变化因此层出不穷，每款丝巾用色可达四十多种。今天，爱马仕精心营造其位于里昂郊区的色彩厨房，令人神往。 上色之前先是刻板，这是爱马仕传承的另一项艺术工艺，把方巾图案中的每一种颜色都打上模板。在接下来的几个星期，甚至几个月里，女画师们精诚地把丝巾图案中的每一个细节都转画到透明纸上，直到所有图案印记都逐一上色完毕。印刷模版制作完毕，色彩大师就可以为原创图案设计多元色彩组合方案了。从三十三种母色系出发，往往可以衍变出成千上万的新色彩，每款色系除原设计之外，多达十二种。
In 1948, Robert Dumas, son-in-law of Émile Hermès, grandson of the founder of the House, urged the Lyon craftsmen to adapt their screen-, or stencil-, printing techniques to the size of its large scarves, measuring ninety centimeters on each side. This eradicated the dangers of botched pattern matches and also made it possible to print any motif imaginable. And more colours could be used, a maximum of approximately forty per scarf. Still today, in the area around Lyon, the “kitchen” of colours concocted by Hermès is worth the visit. Before the actual printing, however, there is the engraving work – another area of expertise perpetuated by the House- which consists in making an inventory of each color of the original design of a future scarf. For weeks, and sometimes months, designers meticulously trace all the details of a single color of the design on tracing paper. They repeat this delicate operation until they obtain all the imprints of the motif, colour by colour. These imprints are then turned into screen frames, allowing colorists to create up to twelve different versions of the original design in various of colorations, as tens of thousands of colors can be developed from the thirty-three mother colours.
富创造力的色彩选择和丰富的设计，成为高品质卷边丝巾的标志风格。源于品质和设计，所有丝巾都能在第一眼被关注。从1937年开始，不同的天才设计师为我们奉献了大约1500件设计，这些大师中就有Cassandre, Sempé, Ledoux, 还有Hilton McConnico，后者为我们设计了在上海展出的《锦绣梦想》展。几十年过去了，著名的爱马仕方巾无论形式还是尺寸，都有革新。有45厘米见方的小方巾，三倍于小方巾的大披肩（140X140厘米），“巾”如其名的百褶丝巾，菱形巾，还有款款小丝带。今年，在丝巾部艺术总监Bali Barret的领导下，爱马仕又推出了70厘米仿古款丝巾。所有的羊毛丝线都被脱去，让丝绸获得更有力的效果。印刷之后，这一新款尺寸的丝巾还要经过全新的收尾处理，从而使之获得已被使用过的效果……
This creativity in the choice of colours and figurative motifs is the trademark of the precious pieces of finely rolled silk, all of which are recognisable at first glance by their quality and designs. Since 1937, over 1,500 different designs have been created by designers as talented as they are diverse, including Cassandre, Sempé and Hilton McConnico, designer of the exhibition “The Tale of Silk” in Shanghai . Over the decades, the famed Hermès scarf has changed styles many times, introducing new shapes and sizes. There is the gavroche measuring 45cm on each side, the shawl, which is three times larger (140 x 140 cm), the plissé – all in textured relief --, the losange and the Twilly, much like a ribbon. In this special anniversary year, under the art direction of Bali Barret, the family welcomes a new addition with the Carré 70 in vintage silk, the warp threads of which have been twisted to make the silk more responsive. After the printing process, this new format also undergoes original finishes that give it an already-worn look…
未来在此与往昔相遇，又或恰好相反。丝巾创作正是在爱马仕获得了新生……
The future meets the past – unless it is the other way round! – and the creation of the scarves at Hermès starts anew…