Slithering through Eden

Serpent's Invitation

Slithering through Eden Carré Scarve in Serpentinite, unfolded — a snake slithering through Eden full of flowers, oil-painted on wood.

Slithering through Eden Carré Scarve in Bathsheba, puff — a snake slithering through Eden full of flowers, oil-painted on wood.

Slithering through Eden Carré Scarve in Bathsheba, unfolded — a snake slithering through Eden full of flowers, oil-painted on wood.

Slithering through Eden

Serpent's Invitation

Be queer, lush and
decadent in Paradise

Our hand-painted design, Slithering through Eden, is a wink to the subversion of Paradise and an ode in flowers to Kristian Zahrtmann, who defied etiquette by portraying women as assertive, men as flamboyant and seductive.

Whorled Signature border

Our signature border of this Pocket Square, finished with a hand-rolled edge, is whorled with Trumpet Vine, Clivia, and Poppies in pink, white, and red.

Colors of Delight

To capture the true depth of our Serpentinite, we work with the UK's oldest silk printer—an atelier as obsessed with detail as we are. The printed silk is then entirely hand-finished in France.

Our Journey of Design

We brought a concept and sketches to Paris-based artist Georgios Christidis. After tweaking the final details together, he oil-painted the motifs on wood in his beautiful, lush style.

The panels are captured by state-of-the-art scanning, meticulously orchestrated into a silk design, and followed by extensive sampling with the printer to get the print and colors perfected.

Hand-painted white poppy using oil paints on a wooden panel, designed for the Siege of Paris.

Visions of Eden: The Nietzschean Lens

Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy found a strong echo in Zahrtmann's teachings; he famously urged his art students to be true to themselves rather than bowing to traditional conventions.

Nietzsche recast Eden not as innocence but as ignorance. The serpent is not evil but the force that awakens knowledge: a symbol of rejecting restrictive bourgeois morality — of daring to taste forbidden knowledge, claim desire, and become masters of their own vivid reality.

On Paradise and Sin

While the serpent's meaning shifts throughout history, Zahrtmann (1843-1917) injected ecstatic colour, bold eroticism, and a 'semi-blasphemous' wit into his famous Adam. Rather than a symbol of evil, the snake becomes a stand-in for the viewer's unapologetic desire. Slithering up to trace his body, it mimics our own wandering eyes, turning the Fall of Man into a seductive celebration of male sensuality.