Ethnic scarf with gold details in green

The only colour here that is not green

Ground aside, this scarf runs on two greens and nothing else, which is unusual for a print so busy. The gold-beige centres are the single exception, and they carry more weight than their size suggests: take them away and the piece would be green on white, full stop. One colour that breaks rank is enough to stop the greens closing in on themselves. The gold never covers a motif either; it only ever sits in the middle of one.

Small ikat motifs set in staggered rows

The repeat is strict. Pick any motif and you can follow its diagonal from one end of the scarf to the other, because each row sits half a width across from the one above it. The motifs are all the same size, each ringed with the fine saw-tooth points that ikat weaves are known for. Chartreuse and pine alternate within a row rather than taking turns row by row. This model sits one level up in the catalogue, alongside the rest of the scarf range.

Where the green reaches full strength

The band round the edge is the same pine as the darkest motifs, this time as one flat, unbroken area. Everywhere else the green is broken up by the pale ground, so it never gets to full depth. The edge is the only saturated area, and it is the part you register first once the scarf is folded over itself.

What the print does once it is wrapped

Wrapped once at the neck, the printed field gathers into narrow vertical folds and the motifs compress into something closer to a stripe. On the two ends, which hang flat, the lattice stays entirely legible. The same print reads twice, as texture at the throat and as pattern down the front, which is worth knowing before you decide how much length to leave hanging.

What the photograph shows

Pale enough to behave like a neutral

The ground is light enough that the scarf registers as off-white before it reads as green, which puts it with the pieces you reach for when an outfit needs lifting rather than colouring. The cast of that near-white is cool, with a trace of mint in it, so it goes more easily with grey, navy and cool white than with cream or camel: cool whites, not warm is the one pairing rule worth keeping. If you would rather see a print laid out whole than gathered into folds, that is what scarves cut as a square are for.