Case Study: Custom Silk Scarves for a School Commission

There is a moment near the end of every custom order when the finished pieces come back from our final checks and someone holds one up to the light, just to look at it. For this project that piece was a silk scarf in navy, and a pocket square in deep chocolate brown, both printed with the same ivory lattice. It is one of our favourite recent commissions, and a fair picture of how these projects actually come together, so we thought we would walk you through it.

The brief

The enquiry reached us through a creative agency, working on behalf of their client, a school. What they were after was refreshingly clear. Not a giveaway destined for the back of a drawer, but a keepsake with a little weight to it, something the school community would be glad to keep and happy to wear. The design was a geometric lattice, clean and quietly formal, and it needed to live on two pieces: a full-size scarf and a smaller pocket square.

What we made

So we made two, in two colourways that share the same character. A 27 inch twill silk scarf in navy, and a 13 inch twill silk pocket square in chocolate brown, each carrying the ivory lattice inside a fine double border. Thirty of each, sixty pieces in all, cut and finished by hand.

The process

Every silk project begins with colour, because colour is the one thing a screen will always lie to you about. A monitor throws light at you. Silk takes that light and gives a little of it back through the sheen of the twill, so a navy that looks certain on a laptop can arrive warmer or cooler once it is sitting in the cloth. Rather than guess, we printed physical colour strikes in the real dye on the real silk and let the agency’s designer choose from what was actually there. One blue, one brown, both settled before anything went to production.

From there the conversation turned to the artwork, and to the least glamorous but most important detail of all, which is the edge. We asked for the files at full resolution, with clear bleed lines and printer’s marks, so everyone could see exactly where the finished border would fall. A twill scarf is hemmed by hand, its edge rolled under into that soft, rounded lip you can feel between finger and thumb, and that roll quietly borrows a few millimetres of fabric as it goes. To keep the frame sitting in proportion afterwards, we widened the colour bands around the border before a single length was printed.

With the artwork approved, the pieces moved into printing and finishing, then through a last quality check. Silk is handwork from start to end, and handwork carries a small, honest margin of variation, so we always make a few more than the order asks for. This time one extra brown piece came through our checks looking exactly as it should, so rather than set it aside we sent it along with our compliments.

The result

Everything passed inspection, shipped on schedule and arrived safely. A few days later the only review that really matters found its way back to us through the agency. The client had opened them, and they looked great. Two small words, and the whole point of the weeks that went into earning them. If a scarf can carry all of that effort and show you none of it, then we have done our job.

Planning a custom silk project for a school, brand or event? Have a look at our guides to custom silk scarves for schools and universities, corporate gifting with custom silk, and the full guide to ordering custom silk scarves in Australia.