Here is a link to the most recent edition. (This is not a sponsored post in any way or form).

Recently, Mme Fontan split her books into three: 1) the main book of ‘regular’ scarves, 2) the ‘limited edition’ book, and 3) the ‘special edition’ one. I own and use all of them, as well as the earlier and later editions.

When I received my book order, I tried to figure out what the difference between special and limited edition was. I think it is as follows:

• Limited editions are the existing designs that had a variation for a specific cause, which can be celebrating a company, an organization, an Hermès boutique, a sports event, etc. This can be a special colorway of the original design, or it might feature additional or edited wording on the scarf.

  • As an example, Alice Shirley’s Cocoricooooo! for the Bond St. boutique — it is based on a regular design, but has a special variation to celebrate the boutique (ref. H104064T)

• Special editions are the designs that were designed specifically for a cause (which can be the same as above: a company, an event, a boutique).

  • A good example is the Centered Rhyme scarf by Elaine Lustig Cohen — it was designed specifically for the Glass House Foundation and has no other variations. Ref. H003139S.

This is the nomenclature I commonly see repeated and shared in the Hermès scarf collector universe, but I don’t agree with it. Before we get into the debate, let’s start with what Hermès actually calls them. Spoiler alert: there is no rhyme or reason to the Hermès nomenclature. At all.

Hermès doesn’t seem to have a clear terminology around anything ‘special’ scarf-wise. (I don’t mean the exceptional/precious scarves here). I am not familiar with an official distinction between the limited and the special editions.

If we think about the reference numbers, where H…S is a women’s collection and H…T is a men’s collection (see previous posts), some scarves are H…SC and H…TC, and these seem to represent their ‘special’ nature. (Fun fact: some laminated tags spell it S7 instead of SC, but what’s a little typo among scarf friends.)

The SC/TC format is quite rare, and there are very few reference codes that use it. Here are some examples:

• The boutique-dedicated scarves:

  • The Cocoricoooo! I mentioned earlier —

    • H104064TC cw13 is the Bond St. edition that was available earlier this summer.

    • H104064T is the regular Alice Shirley design from SS2024. It was available in multiple colorways, including 04, 05, and 08.

  • The Monsieur et Madame II for Lillian Wightman / Le Louvre Melbourne

    • H002777SC in 2012.

    • H002777S is the regular design from AW2013.

• The charity-dedicated scarves:

  • The Les Confessions Carré 90 for the French Scholarship Foundation

    • H002959SC — the 2016 version of an already existing scarf; cw 16 and only sold in the UK/London with 300 copies available.

    • The regular Les Confessions was H002959S in AW2015.

• Miscellaneous:

  • The Serio Ludere maxi twilly —

    • H092809SC is the maxi twilly which was available only in Japan. It was available in at least 4 colorways in SS2014.

    • H002809S is the ‘regular’ Serio Ludere 90cm silk twill available internationally in AW2014.

  • The Bouquets Sellier 90cm silk twill —

    • H000594SC was described as Carré 90 Surteint and issued in around 2016/2017.

      • This is just your garden-variety dip dye. Dip dyes don’t typically have any ‘special’ indication on the tag. Except for this one.

      • Oh, and to confuse you even further, the cw 04 (Fuchsia) tag has the SC code, and the cw 03 (Rouge) didn’t. I think it was genuinely just a typo.

    • The regular Pierre Marie’s Bouquet Sellier (H002842S) was issued in SS2014.

You think you started seeing a pattern? Well, let me tell you about the scarves that don’t have an SC/TC designation at all:

• Charity-dedicated scarves:

  • The Centered Rhyme scarf mentioned above (H003139S) — a very clear case of a scarf issued for a specific non-profit with no ‘special’ designation.

  • The Battery New-York (Battery Park) — H003164S — proceeds went to The Battery Conservancy, NYC.

  • The Panthera Pardus — H233012S — proceeds went to Panthera, focused on wildcat conservation.

  • Astrologie Nouvelle — H002707S — fundraiser for Bibliothèques Sans Frontières

  • And many, many others.

• Boutique-dedicated scarves:

  • The Aloha Ala Moana Special Edition — H432026S — limited to 180 pieces.

  • Hommage à Gene Kelly — Madison Avenue — H983914S — Madison Ave boutique exclusive colorway.

  • And many, many others.

• Miscellaneous:

  • Every other dip-dye scarf in history that I am familiar with (the H131698S Cavalcadour 140 in 2014, the H113553T C'est la Fête dip dye 90 in 2024, the H131266S Brides de Gala dip dye 90 in 2010, and many others).

  • All the Jungle Love Love scarves for Valentine’s Day that came in special heart-shaped boxes and had the heart-shaped print.

  • Brides de Gala Bayadère (Hermès pour Colette) — H002633S — sold only at the Colette pop-up, Paris.

  • And many, many others.

So yes, the conclusion is that there seems to be no apparent logic for what makes Hermès recognize something as more ‘special’ or ‘limited’ than other versions. No wonder collectors try to create their own logic to bring order to the scarf entropy.

I will discuss my own thoughts on the special/edition scarves classification in future posts. As always, I welcome comments, corrections, and additions.

Hermès doesn’t tend to indicate scarf seasons directly these days. I mentioned earlier that the production month is indicated on the most recent style of laminated tags, but that is it. Around 10 years ago, the Japanese Hermès website listed the season for the scarf listings, but that was unique.

A collector friend recently shared some old tags that reminded me that in the early 2000s, the hang tags actually indicated the season.

Here is an Alphabet Russe hang tang that clearly indicates the season — 06H. It stands for L'automne-hiver 2006, or fall-winter (or autumn-winter, depending on what one prefers).

I don’t know what the ‘40000…’ under the bar code stands for, but the reference code is H002298S (note the H wasn’t commonly used then; I am just converting it into the modern format):

• 00 is a 90cm silk scarf (here listed as 35in).

• 2298 is the design code. Some of its adjacent neighbors are:

  • 2294 Christine Henry’s Chemins de Garrigue (spring-summer 2006)

  • 2295 Karen Petrossian’s Les Petits Métiers de Paris (autumn-winter 2006)

  • 2296 Cyrille Diatkine’s En Désordre (autumn-winter 2006)

  • 2300 Henry d’Origny’s Projets Carrés (autumn-winter 2007)

• 02 is the colorway (Dur/Caban/Multicolore).

• S means women’s collection.

Excitingly (for me, anyway), the same friend also shared this tag image:

This is the exact same scarf, but pleated — same colorway. Note the reference code: H162298S. 16 means a 90cm pleated scarf. Pretty simple if one knows what it means.

Here is an example of what a spring-summer season hang tag would look like: a Soiree de Gala reissue dating back to spring-summer 2006 (06E for Printemps-été 2006).

My guess is that seasons are not typically clearly indicated because the company doesn’t want to turn off customers if something is not the ‘current season.’ Also, the seasons are blending—I just bought a 140cm silk Bouquet Final scarf made in June 2026, although it is a spring-summer 2026 design, and the fall-winter ones are already in stores. Here is the tag (67 is silk 140 scarf in a regular weight, not the plume/summer version):

As always, all research is my own and based on my own collection and experience. I welcome all additions and corrections.

Recently, we have had folks generously share that Hermès’ laminated labels can look very different, depending on the season, country, and how Hermès felt that particular month. Even if they look very different, they typically contain some useful information.

Here are two things that are typically shown on the label that are not easily available elsewhere.

The batch code

A modern-day label will typically have a batch code, which is a year and month when the scarf was manufactured. Initially, they were just 4 digits (e.g., 1112 for December 2011), but around April 2018, Hermes started prepending letters HTH to the code (no idea what they mean) but using the same YYMM format; for instance, HTH1805 is May 2018. However, there have been some authentic laminated tags since 2018 that didn’t have the HTH letters.

These codes are useful for dating the scarf and will roughly correspond to the scarf season. 99% of the time, a scarf manufactured in January will be part of the spring-summer collection; a scarf manufactured in July will be part of the autumn-winter collection.

Batch codes suggests scarves are manufactured year-round and often hit the stores pretty quickly after they are manufactured.

Designs seem to be made in batches, with most designs printed in 1 or 2 adjacent months. There have been examples where printing was scattered across multiple months, likely because demand is high and additional production runs were made. I have seen tags indicating the Dans un Jardin Anglais was printed between August 2014 and June 2015, which is a very long production run.

Fun fact — I have collected thousands of batch codes, and it is clear that Hermès makes a lot fewer scarves in August (which makes sense, given that France pretty much goes on vacation then). See the attached image.

(These are not actual counts of all the scarves Hermès makes; this is based on what I have handled and seen, but the large sample size suggests it should be an accurate reflection of the overall pattern)

The color family

Starting in spring-summer 2018, Hermès started prepending color family codes to the labels. The idea of color families is not that new to Hermès — there have been many seasons where certain colors clearly dominated. But this was the first time the color story really got streamlined. These color family codes are displayed on the tag, but not on the website (a couple countries’ websites showed them briefly, but it didn’t last).

For instance, a Hermès Parade 90cm cw03 may have the tag say ‘PN/Gris Bleuté/Vert A’, while the website will say Gris Bleuté/Vert Amande/Orange. In this case, PN is the color family.

The color family codes are typically used for the women’s collection cashmere and silk items. Men’s items have their own color families, but they are usually not consumer-facing.

Color codes are two letters (e.g., CS, MB, FC, SR, SN…) and usually have a meaning, although it is rarely exposed to the general audience. E.g., SS2019 has an RD code that stood for Rose Denim.

There are varying numbers of color families per season, but the average is ~7. Because many designs have more than 7 colorways per issue, there are often several colorways per color family.

Most seasons, there is a ‘miscellaneous’ color family called HG, which seems to be a ‘catch-all’ code. They are often black-and-white scarves, but sometimes are in color as well. My best guess is that it stands for hors gamme, ‘outside the range’.

As always, all the information is based on my own research. I welcome all additions and corrections.

[Note: this post was originally written for and shared in a Facebook group for Hermès scarf collectors, but I wanted to ensure it is shared externally as well.]