The whole process of creating scarves from its design to the final form takes more than two years. The process involves a lot of handiwork and use of traditional and unique machinery. We believe that by taking this opportunity to peek behind the making-of scenes you will fully understand the uniqueness and outstanding value of your future piece of jewellery.
Making of
FFirstly, the designer creates drafts on a specific topic, which is always carefully considered and thought through. The collections’ themes and topics are always set on a poetic, artistic or historical tone - hence the collections Hummingbirds, Flower desires, Magnolia, I can't forget about you.
It takes six to twelve months to work on the initial draft and a mock-up version. The designer always creates a wide range of proposals, selecting the perfect one is not always easy. The draft is manually drawn full-scale on paper.
Then the outlines drawn with a pencil are coloured in watercolours. This is the only way to express the finest colour nuances. Later the proposal is converted into a high definition digital form. Each colour shade is painted on a separate template which has to be accurate to a tenth of a millimetre. There are as many films (silk-screen printing templates), as how many shades there are in the design. There are always all motifs of one colour on each film. This phase of the work is very time-consuming and extremely demanding when considering the accuracy of the design. It is however necessary to be able to achieve perfect results, which will completely correspond to the original proposal.
It is crucial for Dagmaar to carefully select the silk. The beginning of the story of each scarf is literally based on the tiny white rollers of silkworms. Just as in the days of Marco Poloit comes from China, where are the ideal climatic conditions for their raising. What is also important is the experience and tradition of silk processing in China, they started with that more than five thousand years ago. A small iron comb must first capture a piece of fibre from each pupa and unroll it into an incredible length of two thousand meters! To create a single fibre ready for weaving you need seven pupae, to make 1 kilogram of silk you need two to three thousand cocoons. The fibres are wound onto a reel and spun in a soft, extremely dense fabric - silk twill.
After a long journey halfway around the world the fabric will eventually reach workshops in France, which is where Dagmaar gets them from. Due to a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs is the twill fabric very firm, therefore the silk does not crease much and holds its shape. Larger quantitiesof fibre used in this type ensure that the fabric is heavier and more valuable. This means that no matter how you wear your scarf, it will alwaysform beautiful flowing folds. A specific characteristic of silk is its adaptability to different temperatures. It can be pleasantly warm in cold weather and vice versa beautifully cool in the hot summer. Furthermore, it absorbs moisture quickly and that moisture subsequently quickly evaporates.
Traditional production of printed scarves by silk-screen printing technology is literally a virtuoso performance that cannot be learned in any school. Professional flawless quality can be achieved through many years of experience. Long stripes of silk as long as several metres are glued to a heated printing table and with help of a clever mechanism and a hand guided touch a miracle appears right in front of our eyes - a printed image perfectly true to the original.
The first screen is put on a long white stripe of silk. It applies colour to the fabric only in those places, where the impermeable layer of the pattern was removed from the screen.
That is how motifs of the same colour gradually begin to appear on the fabric and the scarf comes to life. When the paint dries, the process is performed again with another screen, then with another and so forth until all colours and shades are applied on the silk.
It takes several hours to print a set of scarves. After many further procedures the endless stripes of printed, but not yet divided squares have to be further processed and adjusted.
Freshly painted silk awaits for many other carefully coordinated procedures, which ensure the perfect finish. Whole rolls of silk are put into a special device that steams it under pressure and at high temperature. The paint gets fixed inside the fabric and attains its brilliant shine and stability thanks to that. The silk is then washed to remove excess paint residues and finally it goes through more rinses in special baths which give it the perfect level of smoothness, which is very important and specific for Dagmaar.
They say that God is in the detail. And that is undoubtedly the handmade edge neatening of the scarves. The traditional edging procedure is the work of skillful hands of seamstresses who give the final touch to the scarves by neatly edging them. The scarf edges are folded several times and fastened with tiny stitches. Doing so requires great skills and patience.
God is in the detail.
In the very end we examine each finished scarf in order to detect any potential flaws that might have been undetected in previous inspections that happen throughout the entire manufacturing process. The scarf is then ironed and neatly wrapped in a tissue paper in order to besent to you neatly stored in a chosen box.
We have reached the final chapter of our scarf making story. Creative imagination, skillful hands and complex traditional procedures all had to be in perfect harmony and synchronisation.
