Spotlight: Playtime!
Hermès invites guests and buyers alike to explore playfulness in this year’s collections and at its June theme-launch party in Paris
Hermès is all about playing with imagination and having fun this year
Heels clacking on cobblestones signalled the fashionable guests du jour arriving in loud prints, clashing colours, and wacky patterns as the overdress code stated—playing cards on a black tea-length dress or sunny-side-ups on a custom-made suit, for starters. Alighting at the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild as the summer dusk turned to chill in time for Hermès’ annual theme revelation, its winding walkway hedged in shrubs soon gave way to an ornate Neo-classical Hausmann façade distinctive of a bygone era in Paris.
“Come in, come all, mesdames et messieurs,” a herald anchored to a desk by the doorway beckoned invitees further into the pebbled cour d’honneur courtyard—when suddenly a French door opened above. “Romeo, oh Romeo!” Juliet beseeched from her balcony. Her dashing knight then dashed into view to reply in kind, earning precious camera moments for esteemed international guests attending this year’s Hermès theme launch.
Just inside the double doors nearby the curving marble staircase, two ladies posing as sphinxes welcomed guests further into the Maison’s call to “Let’s Play!”. Up the stairs and in the atrium, instead of the ornate Louis Xiv-styled mantelpiece, a wheel of fortune stood commanded by a bespectacled gameshow host, urging partygoers to try their luck and further turning the hôtel particulier to a refined fête of colour and whimsy.
Wandering through a hallway of mannequin limbs to toss rings onto and off to the lawns behind, the smoky smells of barbecue braziers drifted along to the sound of cheers as two
knights jousted with each other. In the zany, imaginative Hermès way, however, they wielded words instead of lances as their squires asked audiences around for the best kind of pudding, in one instance, while the green-kilted game master decided both the topic and the winner.
Aside from the fortune wheel and the jousting, the ground floor featured other fun games ranging from a remote-controlled car race to a mini-casino and a photo booth by a side stair to more delights above. From one room, laughter pealed to the beat of disco music where Hermès’ eminences Axel Dumas and Pierre-alexis Dumas, among other nattily- dressed heads, were seen dancing before jostling for a chair when the music stopped. As the night’s guests played on and discovered the joy of letting movement loose and freeing child-like fantasy, the utopia that is Hermès became clear: a place where creation and invention is guided not only by a century of clever craftsmanship but also inventive imagination. The horse as the Maison’s first playmate, for example, is featured playfully in the Arceau Casque watch—not to mention its four primary colour versions recalling board game pieces. Visit www.hermes.com to see more play embedded in its collections from scarves to bags, dresses, and much more.