Collection SS2016: Fantaisies Indiennes

In the centre of this carré, an exuberant Tree of Life extends its branches laden with sumptuous blossoms and fruit, drawn with great delicacy.  A symbol of the life force and eternal rebirth in many world religions, the tree is framed here by a lively frieze of people and animals, inspired by the frescos and wall paintings of Shekharvati in north-western Rajasthan, in India, where their distinctive, naïf style decorates the homes of wealthy Marwari merchants. 

Loïc Dubigeon’s design presents mythological scenes such as the legend of Dhola Maru (named for its two heroes – lovers who elope riding a camel), together with richly caparisoned elephants, and the British colonialists’ preferred modes of transport: the bicycle, motor-car and train.

Collection SS2016: Tatouage Jungle Love

A naturalist working for the National Natural History Museum in Paris, Robert Dallet was incomparably skilled in magnifying the inimitable coat, forceful lines and strength of the big cats; strength in the most accurate way.  He designed a picture of love for us: that brief and passionate interlude when two solitary creatures come together to give life. In a few months time, two leopard cubs, maybe three, will be born in the hollow of a tree or rock. 

But for the time being, the future parents watchfully examine and size each other up in an amorous display, observed by the curious and entertained gaze of the jungle’s frailest inhabitants.  Taking advantage of the two leopards’ complicity, the paradise flycatcher flutters above them, a bit too closely perhaps.  More cautiously, other neighbours keep their distance in the foliage, among the delicate and perfumed orchids: a continuously astonished bush baby, butterflies with strange names like cymothoe or little monarch and multicolor birds.  The bee-eater, taking its name from its favourite food, sunbirds with their bright plumage, plant nectar lovers, and those little accurately named lovebirds who always live in pair, snuggled together like two chilly children.

Collection SS2016: Panthera Pardus

Throughout 2016, Hermès is paying tribute to the incomparable animal painter Robert Dallet, a naturalist and artist who devoted his life to the study and protection of animals.  In particular, Dallet declared a special fascination, and boundless admiration, for the big cats, producing over a hundred plates cataloging every known species, including Panthera pardus, seen here.  Today, the studies form part of the heritage collection of the house of Hermès. Dallet’s assured hand and confident drawing are especially striking – the fruit of days and weeks spent observing and sketching from life. The animal seems to emerge from out of the silk square. 

The panther is the embodiment of the force of Nature itself; its gaze, fur and posture are astonishingly lifelike.  The Indo-Chinese panther, or panthera pardus delacouri, lives a solitary life in the depths of the region’s great tropical forests, where it is threatened by deforestation and hunting.  The name indicates a male panther, first studied in the early 1930s.  

Panthera pardus is the 2016 solidarity carré: a portion of revenues from the sale of the scarf will be donated to the not-for-profit foundation Panthera, established by Thomas S. Kaplan in 2006, to safeguard the big cats.

Collection SS2016: Dragonflies

One of my most beloved artists commissioned by the Maison to mesmerize us, Leigh Cooke is proposing in 2016 a poetic, lighter-than-light touch in a vintage format, design that conjures a flutter of dragonflies and damselflies, those most ethereal, fairy-like insects.  The latter bear a close resemblance to their cousins, but their bodies are narrower, and they carry their wings folded upright above them when they alight on a surface.  

The artist’s studio stands beside a pond surrounded by flowers and reeds.  

The endless ballet of these fragile Odonota (their scientific name) was the inspiration for this composition, rippling gently like the water’s surface.  

Leigh Cooke began the watercolour after a dragonfly flew right into his studio.  While he was at work on the picture, another – the biggest he has ever seen – settled on his windowsill as if to watch.

Collection SS2016: La Marche du Zambeze

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!

I thought I'd start right away with the first in Hermes' new spring/summer 2016 scarf collection - a new design that's meant to mesmerize you with a refreshing design, and which is sporting very fresh colours.

At the centre of La Marche du Zambeze, a majestic elephant symbolises family and power.  Around him are gathered the creatures of his kingdom, the great river lands of the Zambezi: giraffe, zebra, leopard and crocodile trace its course from the savannah to the delta marshes.  The river’s flora is silhouetted all around the composition, off-setting the rich patterns of python and crocodile skin. 

Ardmore is a collective of Zulu, Zimbabwean and Sotho artisan potters, founded by Fée Halsted in 1985, in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. 

Today, the group numbers seventy members: creative artists dedicated to reinventing traditional styles, united by their recognition of what our common humanity and fraternity truly mean – namely that we each exist thanks to others. This carré marks the beginning of a new collaboration between the collective, and the house of Hermès.

Collection 2015: La Maison des Carrés

To ring in the new year, I thought of a design to celebrate one more aspect of the Maison.

La Maison des Carrés is the name of Hermes' online boutique, dedicated to the iconic Hermès silk square.

To celebrate the concept, La Maison des Carrés is a delightful, colourful, humorous account of the creation of an Hermès silk square, from its initial inspiration to the point of sale, with a peek at the colouring and printing processes along the way.  Here, too, are the house museum and its cabinet of curiosities (the inspiration for so many designs), the creative studio – that vital incubator of talent – and last but not least the actors who escort each carré on its great adventure, together with the hubs and nerve centres where each scarf’s destiny is spun and woven, before being tied at the neck, shoulders, waist or head of whoever chooses to buy it and take it home.  

Collection FW2015: Flots, Fleurs et Frontaux

Émile Hermès began collecting at the age of twelve.  The resulting ‘cabinet of curiosities’ reflects the open, inquiring mind of this passionate, amateur art lover.  Émile was a tireless walker, and a regular at the sale rooms, endlessly on the look-out for strange, unexpected pieces to add to those he had already amassed.

The equestrian world holds a special place: Virginie Jamin’s neatly-ordered scarf takes inspiration from the models in a 19th-century catalogue.  Brow-bands (the bridle strap positioned across the horse’s forehead) decorated with medallions are arranged in a labyrinth of straight lines, while ribbon rosettes, presented as prizes at equestrian competitions, are displayed amid a scattering of flowers.

Collection FW2015: L'Arbre du vent

L’Arbre du vent is a tribute to the Huichol people of Mexico’s western Sierra Madre – also known as the Wixáritari – and their polytheistic religion, worshipping the divinity inherent in every aspect of the natural world.

At its centre, the scarf depicts the eye of god, the protector, surrounded by the four elements, marking the four corners of the Huichol world: 

1. Mother Water, the origin of life, Tatei Haramara; 

2. Earth, the soul of the world, Tatei Yurianaka, with two hummingbirds fluttering above, symbolising the souls of traditional shamans; 

3. Grandfather Fire, Tatehuari; and,

4. Air, Kieiri, the Wind Tree. 

Mexican artist Montserrat Gonzalez-Lugo has taken inspiration from traditional bead embroideries and threaded wool pictures to depict the essence of Huichol spirituality.

Collection FW2015: Brides de Gala Brodé

Brides de gala is without doubt the house's most celebrated carré.  Its subject?  The equestrian world, of course.  The flamboyantly decorative bridles, and the perfection of the composition, capture the essence of the timeless Hermès spirit. 

Its title, short and to the point, has the same, direct impact as the dazzling show bridles themselves, evoking the clink of buckles and chains to the rhythmic, majestic beat of the horses' hooves.  Leïla Menchari reinvented this classic design, having it reworked by the nimble fingers of her master embroiderers.  The sharp, detailed image took on a more sensual, velvety feel.  Framed as an element in one of Leïla's unforgettable window displays, the piece was subsequently hung in the office of Hermès president Jean-Louis Dumas, to whom she presented it, as a souvenir.

Collection FW2015: Bouquets Sellier

A curious quartet!  Straps, curb chains, harnesses and stirrups are gathered into bright bouquets, like cut flowers.  Tassles hang like clustered bluebells, leather straps are tied into bows, spurs resemble starry daisies, bits are looped like flower garlands, and riding crops become calyxes.  Horses' heads, their manes rippling and ringletted, burst from the sheaves like wild blooms.  Arranged on horse blankets, folded to show their front and reverse sides, the four compositions are a perfect metamorphosis of fabrics, leather and metal parts.

Collection FW2015: Cheval Fusion

Metal in fusion. Mercury, perhaps? The substance is sleek, glossy, somehow alive… and supremely seductive.  Impossible not to think of another carré – Vif argent, created a few seasons ago by the same designer, Dimitri Rybaltchenko – at the sight of this design.  Mercury is unique: a metal in a naturally liquid state, sensitive to the slightest pressure, so that it scatters in a multitude of fluid, free-flowing baubles.

Cheval fusion: the protean liquid suggests an array of potential forms.  Bits, buckles and stirrups coalesce, and a proud steed is born.  The magic of metamorphosis!  Could this be the lair of Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge and volcanoes, inventor of magical objects?  Could this outburst of metal hold a clue to the secret art of alchemy?  Remember – Mercury is also a planet, named for a Roman god, whose Greek ancestor bore the name… Hermes.

Collection FW2015: Le Potager Extraordinaire

Like the island of Lilliput, discovered by Lemuel Gulliver in the course of his extraordinary Travels, as related by Jonathan Swift, the inhabitants of Pierre-Marie’s imagined city are ‘lilliputian’ (tiny) indeed. 

The design presents the delightful spectacle of their daily lives. In this childlike world of transformations and metmorphoses, a vegetable garden becomes a complex city inhabited by creatures identical to ourselves in every way, but who are no more than an inch or two in height. Flowing with water thanks to an ingenious irrigation system doubling as a water-slide, the city’s dwelling-places are clearly named: cucumis melo (a melon), foeniculum (a fennel bulb) or cucurbita maxima (a pumpkin)... Take time to look around – there are surprises and delights at every turn. Lovers meet in the shade of a grove of leeks, a man sits meditating at the heart of a lotus-shaped artichoke, a marrow is cut to form a car, and a minuscule duo set to work slicing a radish with a two-handled saw…

Collection FW2015: Les Ailes de la Soie

 The butterfly is without doubt the most enduring symbol of metamorphosis.  Earthbound in caterpillar form, it next becomes a nymph or larva, and an imago, before fluttering into the air with incomparable delicacy.  The cocoon it leaves behind is spun from threads of which precious material? Silk, of course.

Aline Honoré’s design borrows the silhouette and pattern of four superb lepidopterae – the Attacus Caesar of the southern Philippines, the Argema Mittrei or Comet Moth of Madagascar, the Epiphora Bauhiniae or silkmoth of Saharan Africa, and the "Jacobece d’Amérique".  Their delicate, dazzlingly-coloured wings are decked with a multitude of geometric motifs, defining their stylised silhouettes against a background of silken cocoons.