One Article Started My Obsession & What Happened This Weekend

Why I Still Think About This Article 17 Years Later

This weekend, I had the joy of hosting a talk on The Art of Hermès Scarf Collecting and wow, what an amazing group! Thank you so much to everyone who joined me, whether in person in the charming town of Charlevoix, Michigan, or virtually over Zoom. We covered so much: how to start your collection, what to look for in a scarf, how to “read” the scarf using the “Abigail Chart”, and some of my favorite easy ways to style them. I even brought scarves to shop!

I wore one of my favorite scarves ever to this event, and it sparked so many compliments and questions. So for this week’s post, I thought it would be fun to take a closer look at the scarf, since I’ve never talked about this one before and the article where I first saw it, 17 years ago.

These images are from the September 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, and to me, this issue is iconic. It has Giselle on the cover and shows the world of Hermès in the most deliciously voyeuristic way. We get rare peeks inside the private Hermès museum, the workshops, the design offices, complete with leather scraps, mannequins, even a mountain of saddle forms. And sprinkled throughout are the people who quietly, steadily shape the brand’s DNA.

I still remember seeing this photo for the first time, in my childhood bedroom, curled up with the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

It was a room I’d fully decorated myself. Lavender walls, a matching floral bedspread, floor length organza curtains and I even found an Italian Chandelier, deeply discounted, and hidden in the back sale room of Anthropologie, which I had to have and my Dad help me install. It has moved with me and is the same one in my closet room that is in my videos today. I had stacks of Vogue issues, a few Vanity Fairs mixed in, and a growing love for beautiful things.

At the time, I was just beginning to collect some nicer things. For a recent birthday, I’d received a few pieces from the “Return to Tiffany” collection… which I did, in fact, return to Tiffany. I traded them all for a very chic silver pillbox, which I still have and still love. There were also some Chanel costume earrings and a Louis Vuitton I bought myself with babysitting money.

But this photo.
The stack of Hermès boxes. so simple and the perfect orange to my lavender. I remember thinking how perfect that pop of orange would look against my walls and that was before opening the box. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the women the article referenced, the ones waiting for their Birkins.

Seventeen years later, I still think about this article. And this weekend, at my Art of Hermès Scarf Collecting event, I wore one of the scarves shown in the piece. It felt so full-circle and sparked quite a few questions and compliments, so let’s get into it.