COLOUR PLAY

A flash of bold hues greeted the guests of Hermès, which showcased its home collection in an impressive purpose-built exhibition at La Permanente. The museum housed soaring structures clad in 150,000 handmade glazed tiles from Morocco rendered in shades of turquoise, amber, sea green, sienna and more. The imposing architecture, which took a month to construct for the week-long exhibition, was meant to contrast the whimsical, detail-oriented pieces that make up this year’s collection. “We wanted to work with scale. Most of the pieces this year are small so we created towering structures; the height is emphasised by the use of stairs in the scenography,” says Charlotte Macaux Perelman, co-artistic director at Hermès Maison. In line with the maison’s overall theme of “play”, the home metier featured whimsical pieces that referenced games, most notably the tangram, which was the inspiration for the creations of Italian artist and designer Gianpaolo Pagni. With the brand’s history as a saddle maker, exquisite leather details and pieces were all but expected. We found dreamcatchers and necklace busts made with wood and leather, plus a finely-crafted leather drawer on the Vice-versa occasional table. A standout was The Pli’h series—decorative desk objects crafted out of a single sheet of Bridle leather and held together with four stitches of white linen thread. hermes.com