How Vera Neumann's Scarves Came To Be

In the early 1940s shortly after they married, Vera Neumann's husband George encouraged her to transfer her artwork to fabric with the idea of using the fabric for home decor.  Together they built their first silk screen that was so small it fit on the top of their dining room table.  This led to the launching of a small printing company which they named Printex.  Table napkins and placemats were small items that were easily produced on the small silk screen.  Since they transferred the designs from Vera's original paintings with her signature on them, that's how her signed textiles began.

The war effort dried up easy access to the linen and cotton fabric that they used and during one of Vera's searches, she found excess parachute silk in an Army surplus store.  This parachute silk became her new canvas and her silk scarf business was born.  Once again her signed artwork was used for the scarf designs and this was the beginning of the 'signature' scarf.

Her first scarf was sold to Lord & Taylor in 1947.  The first designs were simple and monochromatic.  Many of the scarves featured allover designs of a single object.  One of Vera's favorite motifs was botanicals; leaves, ferns, and other flora that captivated her imagination as a child.

Her earliest scarves were also smaller, almost handkerchief sized, than her later scarves as they were still using a small screen print.

Having a love for estate sales, I've managed to collect several of her earlier scarves.  The green scarf with the leaf design is one of her earliest, I believe, which may date from the late 40s to early 50s.  The scarf doesn't have the handrolled hem that her Japanese scarves do.  Instead the fabric has stitching almost like a satin stitch around the edges of the scarf.  The attached tag also says the scarf is designed and handscreened in USA.  

No matter what the subject matter, I love Vera scarves!  I'm happy that they're still easy to find...and collect.