Hermès Maison remains at the forefront of cutting edge design
Hermès’ artistic directors take WISH behind the scenes at Milan Design Week 2022.
For hardcore design pilgrims like me who regularly attend Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile, each visit to the city becomes imprinted in our memories, with distinct events that stand out long after they’ve become a thing of the past. It’s only the very best experiences, however, that continue to occupy the corners of my mind, Barbara Streisand style, despite the visual overwhelm the world’s premier design event delivers each year, while others simply fade away.
Over the years, Hermès’ presence in Milan has been a consistent highlight. There was the ethereal paper and wood pavilion by Shigeru Ban in 2011 at La Pelota; the cascading mini-houses by Philippe Nigro at Circolo Filologico Milanese in 2013; the Palazzo Serbelloni spectacle in 2014; the monumental brick pavilion by Mexican architect Mauricio Rocha at Teatro Vetra in 2016.
Then 2017 marked the beginning of a new era that was about generating an even stronger link between the architecture, the objects and the scene. A brick and terracotta pavilion designed by Charlotte Macaux-Perelman, in collaboration with Alexis Fabry – the two artistic directors of Hermès Maison – was an homage to the Mediterranean equestrian stables house where the Hermès story as a producer of horse harnesses began in 1837.
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Another sublime showcase followed in 2018 – a series of towering pavilions clad in more than 150,000 handmade Moroccan zellige tiles in shimmering colours designed by Macaux-Perelman that became a lasting visual reference for Milan Design Week at large. And so the story continued each year thereafter, with Hermès building on the success of its spectacular scenography. The subsequent buzz surrounding its presentations followed, as visitors turned up in greater numbers, never knowing what to expect but always being sure they’d be dazzled. After all, one would expect nothing less of Hermès.
So how does a brand with such an impeccable reputation go about delivering memorable presentations each time? Not to mention the level of finesse imbued in each product on show – the sole purpose of these elaborate installations.
This year, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Charlotte Macaux-Perelman and Alexis Fabry to chat about all things Hermès Maison, including the concept for 2022, staying at the forefront of cutting-edge design, and the rationale behind the installation. And about how, rather impossibly, Hermès has managed to outdo itself yet again.
Once again, La Pelota, the iconic event space in Brera, played host to this year’s installation, where the theme for 2022 – Looking For Lightness – was unveiled. Four colossal, water-tower-like, light-emitting installations – framed in ash wood and wrapped in translucent coloured paper – stood sentinel, as though manifested from a sci-fi movie. Except this was no otherworldly magic. It was a work of art put together by the preternaturally talented Hermès team.
However, it was what the towers held on the inside that was the real crowning glory: perfectly square piles of paper pulp, and elegant wooden rails, playing host to the brand’s latest homeware collection, which challenges the notion of gravity. And for the first time ever for a home collection, textiles were the underpinning theme. Five creations, all made of cashmere (the house’s favourite material), formed the centrepiece of the collection. The pieces were diverse: strips of cashmere characterised the plaids; hand-dyed squares dazzled as patchworks; woven geometric shapes were reminiscent of stained-glass windows; and a traditional quilting technique found expression on a colourful bed cover.
Objects, porcelain and furniture also found a place: hand-painted leather vessels and delicate porcelain plates that held a mirror to the sun. There was also a cane and leather seat that beautifully straddled elegance and ergonomics. The objects all evoked a lightness of being.
For Macaux-Perelman and Fabry, tailoring cashmere to suit the theme was not without its challenges. “Cashmere is a thick textile, so in translating it into something soft and light, into something with various colour gradients, it took some work,” Macaux-Perelman said. For Fabry, the project took on painterly nuances, with the textiles taking on the role of a canvas. “Some of these plaids are reminiscent of brushstrokes, and it makes me think of the painter Chevalier, who would layer paint on paint. We were pleasantly surprised by the fineness of material we achieved.”
Yet, the larger-than-life installations – of which one was cone-shaped, the second was cubic, while the third and fourth were respectively shaped like a pyramid and a hexagon – seemed almost antithetical to the idea of lightness. “Lightness has always been central to the Hermès ethos. In this collection, we’ve worked on creating objects that are strong and solid, but not heavy; objects that will stand the test of time,” said Macaux-Perelman, and Fabry chimed in, “At the same time, the use of heavy materials like leather made us evaluate how best to strike a balance. We didn’t want to give up objects simply because we wanted them to be light.””
For Macaux-Perelman and Fabry, the installations are monumental. “But at the same time they’re also very intimate. When we place an object within an architectural framework, we’re inspiring a relationship between us and these objects,” noted Macaux-Perelman, who took a leaf out of the photography book Water Towers by Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher when modelling the towers.
Historically, Hermès has been renowned for its use of patterns and, once again I saw a lot of sophisticated geometries in the installations and in the collection. When I asked the pair about it, they said, “Hermès has a history of chromatic and graphic richness. So this year, we decided to focus on shining that through. For the Coulisse table lamp, designed by Tomás Alonso, for instance, we used the same fabric used to make kites: light, but very robust and durable. And so we asked the artisans to paint directly onto the fabric. In the past, we used to do this with textiles, but now we also do this with objects in order to achieve lightness,” said Macaux-Perelman, adding that she and Fabry have worked together to aesthetically soften the collections by paring back the geometry.
For a heritage so rich, Hermès’ design philosophy is remarkably unfussy. “When it comes to choosing a new designer to work with, all that matters is that we like their design language, and that the person is highly compatible with Hermès. After that, the rest is easy. Because, while we do have a vague path in our heads, we don’t really know where we’re heading,” mused Fabry, adding that they’re often surprised by their experiments. A sign of creative bravery that’s only possible when you’re so deeply and authentically connected to your work, as Macaux-Perelman and Fabry clearly are. The perfect custodians of one of the world’s most revered brands.
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