Custom Silk Scarf Honors Mount Holyoke College
Premiering at the 2026 European Alumnae Symposium in Scotland, the original calligraphic artwork celebrates the artist’s alma mater and women’s college education.
New York-born, Rome-based artist and designer Claudia Palmira has created a limited-edition silk scarf honoring her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, and the enduring significance of women’s college education.
The scarf premieres at the 2026 Mount Holyoke European Alumnae Symposium in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Claudia is a featured speaker, presenting her work at the intersection of contemporary art, design and historical sources.
The design began as an original calligraphic painting inspired by the lyrics of the Mount Holyoke College song. Working while listening to the College choir perform the song, the artist allowed its words, rhythm, and her own memories of Mount Holyoke to move into abstraction.
The resulting artwork was transformed into a silk scarf for Clù, Claudia Palmira’s line of silk collections, sold online and at the Met Opera Shop (New York).
Created in three colorways, each scarf transforms the original painting into wearable art. The painted name Mount Holyoke is layered into the composition, evoking the rolling landscape of South Hadley, Massachusetts, where the College is located. The three colorways symbolize different aspects of the campus for the artist: the landscape, the night sky, and the stone buildings, each representing a visual memory of Mount Holyoke.
Part artwork, part keepsake, the scarf is a piece of Mount Holyoke to wear, celebrating the artist’s alma mater, its landscape, and the connections that have endured.
ABOUT CLAUDIA PALMIRA
Claudia Palmira is a New Yorker and Rome-based artist, designer, and creative director. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she studied Art History, Palmira has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, calligraphic abstraction, exhibition design, publishing, and wearable art.
Her work frequently draws upon historical, literary, and cultural sources, transforming them through contemporary visual language. Her projects include silk scarf collections created for the Metropolitan Opera Shop in New York, as well as exhibitions and artistic collaborations in Italy and internationally.
She is the founder of Studio Claudia Palmira, Rome Design Agency, and Clù, her silk scarf line. She also serves as head of the Mount Holyoke College Alumni in Italy.
ABOUT CLÙ
Founded by Claudia Palmira in Rome, Clù is a collection of silk scarves created from original works of art. Each design begins with an artistic concept, often inspired by literature, music, mythology, or cultural history, and is translated into wearable silk.
AVAILABILITY
The Mount Holyoke silk scarf premieres at the 2026 European Alumnae Symposium in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is available in three colorways as a limited edition through www.byclu.com.
This scarf is an independent artistic interpretation by Claudia Palmira and is not an official Mount Holyoke College product.
Press inquiries, images, and further information:
info@claudiapalmira.com
+393468040444
