Hermes Pony Pit Stop Double Face Scarf 90 100% Silk H904207S 05

Road trips have a specific smell, petrol, coffee, a little dust, and Pony Pit Stop bottles the mood. Ugo Bienvenu’s pony, halted somewhere between two places, is drawn with the relaxed wit of a good cartoonist, and the double face construction gives you the scene in two colour moods depending on which side you show. The drawing has real affection for its subject, which is not always true of comic scarves.

I take mine on drives. Folded as a neckerchief with the knot to one side, it reads as a bandana with better manners; opened over the shoulders by evening, the full drawing appears, frame by frame, like a strip from a travel journal. The knot to one side is also, entirely by accident, a decent map of where we stopped for coffee. Because both faces are printed, the bias fold produces a thin two-tone line along the edge, a small detail that hunters of such things will notice at a lunch table.

The scarf is 100% silk twill, made in France, 34.8 inches a side, and hand-rolled at the hem. Expect a small, very human variation in exact size from the listed figure; no two hems are stitched the same. For a scarf with this much personality, it behaves with surprising polish.

My caveat concerns weight, not style: a double face square is very slightly thicker through the knot. On a bulky coat collar, tie it flatter and wider rather than tighter. Otherwise it wears as comfortably as any single-face ninety, and it is the easiest step into double-printed silk I can recommend.