Breaking Convention
Hermès’ long-time jewellery and shoes creative director Pierre Hardy is on a relentless pursuit of originality. How does this lead to his creation of the brand’s latest Lignes Sensibles high jewellery collection?
Hermès’ jewellery and shoes creative director Pierre Hardy is on a relentless pursuit of originality
Pierre Hardy is the consummate creator. Considering he is the creative director for Hermès jewellery and shoes for 30 years as well as the man behind the maison’s new beauty products, this might not come as too much of a surprise.
He approaches his work with simultaneous ease and intensity. “I draw every day,” he says of his creative process. “Any time, any place.” He scoffs at the idea of having to be in the exact same spot in the studio, at the exact same time, and only sketching under absolutely perfect conditions. “I can draw on any sheet of paper, any lost envelope—anything … ” Hardy also insists that he is not the kind of designer who has to travel or be alone all the time in order to create. Rather, he finds inspiration in his everyday surroundings.
Hardy is hardly the only designer to find beauty in the mundane, but he is certainly unique in the way that he approaches that inspiration. Take, for instance, Hermès’ new high jewellery collection, the mysteriously named Lignes Sensibles, or “sensitive lines” in French. “I am very
inspired by immaterial things,” Hardy explains. “Like the very subtle feelings and perceptions that can manifest in the body—an emotion, a thrill, a caress, or the simple feeling of a hand in your hair ... I asked myself how I could transform them into jewellery, because those moments of emotion are very beautiful and very intimate.”
While abstract, the point of inspiration led him to focus on the lines of the body and all the different ways that jewellery can be worn and interact with the body. He wanted, in a way, to create deliberate tension between the organic, soft shapes of the body and the graphic geometry of the collection’s jewellery pieces. “And after all, what is a ring? It’s a form that is very abstract. It’s a circle, you know, it’s geometry.”
By this point, it is probably obvious that Hardy takes a very cerebral and abstract approach to jewellery design, unlike many designers who often have a more literal lens. Part of this is because Hardy pursues new, original shapes with relentless fervour. “I always ask myself: how can I tell new stories about this house? What can I add, among all the objects that the house has already created, that will surprise the people who see the collection?”
The Lignes Sensibles collection is composed of very unique shapes, but that’s not the only unusual thing about
it. The gemstones chosen for the jewellery pieces are similarly uncommon. Think the likes of brown diamonds, moonstones and milky quartz, with many of them cut into unusual cabochons and bearing deliberate inclusions. “I love inclusions very much because they make the stones so special and unique,” Hardy explicates. “They are all colours in between, not bright or bold—they are sort of grey, but a little bit green. A little bit blue, or mauve, or pink-beige at the same time.”
These in-between colours are intended to represent the facets of the human experience that are subtle and often hidden from public view. Hardy’s choice of gemstones is transgressive of the jewellery industry’s conventions—which prize clear, vibrant gemstones—and serves to highlight how his approach to jewellery creation prioritises design and ideas and eschews expected norms.
Hardy’s quest for originality also serves to expand people’s perceptions of Hermès as a brand. “People can sometimes have a classical idea of Hermès,” he explains. “But I try to show them to think another way.” He also recognises that there is an inherent tension between the need for originality and the need to tie creations back to Hermès’ heritage. “It has to be new and different, but also has to match with the existing values of the house.”
Does he ever tire of his quest for originality, or the constant sketching? Well, “for me it’s like breathing, looking or hearing. It’s probably the thing I prefer the best in the world”.