What to Look for When “Grails” Don’t Speak to You

All Scarves Are Important, Not Just Grails

We’ve all been taught to chase the icons, but there’s a different type of collecting that rewards curiosity, not just prestige.

There’s a kind of strength in seeing over 50 Hermès scarves kept together by one person. Not a dealer, or a flipper, but someone who carefully curated their collection and loved them enough to hold on. It’s a single-owner collection I’ve been working through, and today I’m sharing a preview. But not the typical preview, we are looking at it a little bit differently. I am very excited about this collection and most of the pieces were collected in the early 2000’s.

This collection isn’t a parade of grails. These aren’t the scarves that usually headline auctions and they might not be rare in the obvious ways, but they are part of the bigger picture. They represent the themes of the years, the artists, colors of the seasons and more.

There is so much talk about grails, but what does that even mean? Is it just a design that was deemed important years ago? Of course there are ones that fetch higher values based on a collective agreement that they are the most beautiful or rare, but there’s also another side of it. A grail can be something personal. It can be a scarf you’ve been chasing for years. A colorway you never knew existed until it stopped you mid-scroll or a pattern that really speaks to you.

Every scarf tells a story and some are just louder than others. But the ones in this group, deserve a closer look because they might become your new grail and they might help you see your own collection differently. Plus I’ve matched them all to their reference points in Hermès marketing, which always gives a new perspective on a motif. Some are kind of like an abstract painting, where someone might say, “what’s the big deal”? But when you see the artist’s statement, the whole thing changes.

This preview is a look at the kinds of scarves that rarely get the spotlight. The ones that remind you to trust your own taste, not just a resale ranking. If you’re building a collection that really speaks to you, this is for you.