Wooden horses wearing ties, hats, scarves and shoes from the new Hermès collection are included in a set of interiors by Spanish designers CuldeSac.

The installation is one of nine occupying different rooms in a stately house, each with a different theme.

A second room displays scarves draped over floating balloons that resemble colourful ghosts.

Other rooms contain decorative flower pots, shoebox towers and dancing puppets.

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Here are some more details from CuldeSac:

“Contemporary Craftsmanship”
Hermès: contemporary artisan. A unique interpretation by CuldeSac™.

Like every season, Hermès launches its new collection of accessories inspired in the maison’s brand values.

“Contemporary craftsmanship” highlights the brand´s savoir-faire and the artisan´s work through a contemporary prism portraying Hermès accessories as timeless objects of art.

Always surprising in its product launches, Hermès entrusted CuldeSac™ with the creativity for its Au/W 2011 Accessories Presentation to the media.

Nine installations with artisan soul designed by the creative team devised a magical tour around the 400m2 stately house, emulating the behind the scenes environment of the atelier, capturing the magic and values of the artisan work.

Time and balance, discipline and precision, craftsmanship and raw materials, curiosity... And the artisan’s maxim: bringing objects to life.

At the entrance, six marionettes around the table come to life recreating the fantasy of Gepetto, Pinocchio´s artisan carpenter.

Advancing towards the intimate space of the atelier, the male accessories unveil themselves among molds, unfinished pieces and remnants.

The silk and cashmere carrés seem to float and gently rock to the sound of “The Nutcracker”, a symphony of the artisan work and its tools.

The rhythm of discovery is paced, a metronome echoing the patience of the artisan shoemaker gains presence as the shoe collection slowly unveils among constant references to time and patience, precision and detail.

The final experience is filled with surprise; nostalgia and hidden treasures placed in those mythical music boxes invite to dream and remember...

See also:

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Hèrmes Rive Gauche by RDAI	Delicatessen 2 by Z-A Studio	Puma House Tokyo by Nendo

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by CuldeSac for Hermès appeared first on Dezeen.

French architects RDAI have completed this new Paris boutique for fashion brand Hermès inside a 1930s swimming pool building.

Hèrmes Rive Gauche features three nine-metre high wooden pavilions made of ash laths, each housing the Hèrmes collections.

A fourth wooden structure lines the staircase leading visitors from the entrance into the former pool.

The floor of the pool area is covered with mosaic tiles.

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Photographs are by Michel Denancé unless otherwise stated.

Here are some more details from Hèrmes:

Hermès has entrusted the RDAI agency, which is reponsible for designing all the Hermès stores worldwide, with the design of a new space, singular and unexpected in Paris. Hermès is setting up shop in a swimming pool... An immense volume, empty. An impression more of space than of surface area. And now, at the end of a project that added but did not take away, the Lutétia swimming pool, in the heart of the Saint-Germain- des-Prés quarter of Paris, has metamorphosed into the first Hermès boutique on the Left Bank.

The architectural project led by Denis Montel and the teams at RDAI mixes contrasts and complementarities. It was imagined more in terms of volume than surface area, in m3 more than in m2. In the end, it is an intervention both radical and astonishingly gentle.

Listed as a Historic Monument since 2005, the swimming pool built in 1935 has a strong architectonic character and a compelling identity, that of Art Deco – it is in the spirit of its age. After its closure, the swimming pool underwent varied and diverse uses and was transformed. The challenge was to translate some of the values intrinsic to Hermès into space: heritage and modernity, savoir-faire and creation.

The project has a double aim. First of all to respect, conserve and reinterpret the architecture of the swimming pool.The only important modification was the covering of the pool by means of concrete composite floor slab supported by a light structure. Underneath, the pool has been integrally preserved. The facade, giving onto the rue de Sèvres, has kept its original appearance.

Then, to tell another story, one that is resolutely contemporary.This takes form through the appearance of three monumental ash huts which both disrupt the existing volumes and converse with them.The invasion of what was once the pool by these huts, flexible, light and nomadic, suggests the creation of houses within the house.

A change of scale, an invitation to wander, to drift, which produces a powerful magic... Everywhere the movements seem natural, they are fluid, rippling.The shimmering of the water that was once here is evoked in a subtle way in the tones of the mosaics, in the effects of the lights... What existed and what has been added converse in a strange harmony. They are whole, they are complementary.

The Entrance

At the foot of an elegant apartment building from the mid 1930s, the facade of the Hermès store is discreet.An entrance portico in the centre between two windows, nothing to hint at the surprise awaiting once through the doors...

The entrance is like a lightwell overturned, horizontal, which attracts one irrevocably towards the light at the back, towards what was the Lutétia swimming pool.The entrance to the store must function like a delicious trap into which the visitor lets himself slide, from crossing the threshold of the doors on the street until he reaches the swimming pool and its strange inhabitants, the huts.

To guide him, the perspectives are accentuated and modified by an imperceptible contraction, rather like the sides of the Médicis fountain in the Luxembourg garden. The lightly inclined ceiling, the walls curved and leaning inwards, covered with oak laths that leave recesses open as if floating in matter. An introduction full of mysteries inciting one to plunge into this new Hermès house.

The Huts

Four pavilions with an organic design, in which some will recognise familiar forms from the plant or animal world, or from childhood... Others will liken these huts, which occupy the volume of the swimming pool, to the nests of tisserin birds.These pavilions of different form and dimensions are constructed in ash wood. They are self-supporting structures that rest on a system of woven wooden laths (profile 6x4cm) with a double radius of curves. The documentation and three-dimensional drawing of the complex geometry of each hut was made possible by the computer script written for each one of them.

Rising to more than 9 m in height, they lean progressively, as if attracted by the skylights. The huts house the Hermès collections. They seem to have simply alighted on the ground, lending the project its nomadic dimension.

The fourth hut, which appears to be lying down, lines the staircase that naturally leads the visitor towards the pool and forms the link between the entrance and the open space of the swimming pool.

The Lighting

In such a volume, the lighting is crucial. The entire space is bathed in natural light that penetrates through the three large skylights above the atrium, softened only by a metal screen. At night the skylights are lit to avoid a “black hole” effect.

In order to avoid putting the spaces overlooking the pool that previously housed the changing rooms, in the shade, the effects had to be measured out, the contrasts that would otherwise have been too harsh attenuated. All the vertical panels are therefore also lightly illuminated.

Above photograph is by Bruno Clergue

The undulating walls in white plaster, running around the ground floor, are lit from above by LED tape with the light source hidden from view.

Above photograph is by Bruno Clergue

Lit from the interior, the huts appear as giant lanterns. A lighting device embedded in the floor, illuminates their vaults of latticed wood.

Each hut has a large chandelier composed of a double ring of suspended wood.The shelving is lit by integrated and invisible LED tape.

Above photograph is by Bruno Clergue

The Mosaics

The Lutétia swimming pool is a mineral world. The floors, the columns, the staircases are covered in mosaics, broken tiles or granito. The existing ornamental elements on the floor and the walls have been preserved and restored.

Through the play of this transformation, this world has discovered several new forms of expression...

Above photograph is by Bruno Clergue

In the entrance to the store, a mosaic carpet with a Greek motif (a nod to the flooring of the Hermès store at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré) welcomes visitors. Following this desire for coherence, the steps and risers of the large newly created staircase are in granito.

Adding to this refinement, the floors of rooms less visible to visitors (such as the fitting rooms, the bathrooms) have been worked in broken tiles. It is a means of writing these new spaces into the history of the swimming pool. The surface of the pool is adorned with a mosaic covering, whose texture and composition of ceramic and glass mosaic tiles evoke the movement of waves. Shiny and matt tesserae in different dimensions and in multiple colours and white gold seem to vibrate as one moves around. A random approach to the composition in graduated tones creates effects of depth and sparkle accentuated by the play of light.

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See also:

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Mulberry store by Universal Design Studio	Dezeen's top ten: shops	Wood Pavillion by Wing Yi Hui & Lap Ming Wong

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Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka has created an installation in Tokyo for fashion brand Hermès, where a movie of a woman appears to blow on a scarf hanging in the window.

Movie © Satoshi Asakawa/courtesy of Hermès Japan

Called Maison Hermès Window Display, the project is a reinterpretation of a similar installation designed by Yoshioka for Hermès in 2004.

It will remain in place until 19 January 2010.

More about Tokujin Yoshioka in our special category.

Here's some text from Yoshioka:

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This is a design to introduce a world of fantasy, Hermes’ lively scarves, which now represent one of the significant brand images.

On designing a window-display at the 1F Maison Hermes, I intended to express people’s daily “movements” with a suspicion of humor. There are moments when I perceive a hidden presence of a person in the movements born naturally in daily life. In this installation, I created a space where one can perceive someone behind the scarves as if life were breathed into them.

The window is designed with an image of woman projected on to the monitor. The scarf softly sways in the air in response to the woman’s blow.

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by Tokujin Yoshioka appeared first on Dezeen.

French fashion house Hermès have teamed up with car distributor Como to design the interior of ten Smart cars.

The ten cars have been produced in ten colours, upholstered using materials and techniques usually found in Hermès' travel accessories.

See a helicopter customised by Hermès in our previous story.

The following is from Como/smart:

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The Como/smart Paris group is celebrating its tenth birthday at the Grand Palais and presenting 10 smart specially upholstered by Hermès

On 6 November 2008, the Como group, official distributor of the Smart brand in Paris and Île-de-France, will be celebrating its tenth birthday and presenting 10 smart in ten different colours, clad and upholstered by Hermès.

The zingy and playful smart fortwo Toile H edition will be the smallest and most elegant of the compact city cars sold by Como/smart Paris.

The craftsmen in Hermès workshops have endowed the car’s interior with new upholstery, optimising the space for maximum comfort and practicality.

The gearlever and steering wheel have been cased in saddle-stitched leather, and numerous compartments have been made in Toile H with all the care lavished on true Hermès objects.

For this birthday, 10 colours are being proposed: Ebony, Gold, Charcoal, Orange, H Red, Bright Red, Fuchsia Pink, Indigo, Sky and Lime. Part of the coachwork, the tridion safety cell, is covered with the Toile H motif.

It was in 1998, with the creation of its first smart center at Trocadéro, Paris, that the Como group began its dramatic rise. A precursor, the visionary Oussama Kaddoura made the little city car a huge success in the French capital, where the smart has achieved one of its highest penetration rates in Europe.

Today, with annual sales of 4,000 vehicles, Como has become the leading smart distributor in France and in Europe. With smart and the Lexus hybrids range, Como offers a broad range of low-pollution cars suited to urban driving. The smart fortwo, 100% French-made, holds the record for the lowest CO2 emission (88g/km).

With the smart fortwo édition Toile H, Como is celebrating 10 successful years in the company of its faithful clients at the Grand Palais. This emblematic Parisian location which evokes the heritage of both culture and cars – it was the home of the Salon de l’Automobile from 1901 to 1961 – is now presenting smart original concept, "10 years, 10 colours".

Exclusive distributor : Como group/smart Paris

Price :
coupé 38,000 Euros
cabrio 39,500 Euros

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French fashion house Hermès has teamed up with manufacturers Eurocopter to create a luxury helicopter.

The interior has been covered in fabrics and leather to minimise noise and vibration, including Toile H, a material used for Hermès travel accessories since the 1920's.

Photographs by Vincent Lappartient.

The following information is from Hermès:

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Hermès and Eurocopter fuse style technology in landmark design partnership

Eurocopter and Hermès lift the veil on a singular experiment in collaborative engineering and design. Introducing ‘l’Hélicoptère par Hermès’. Exclusively at the 2007 edition of NBAA.

Two companies, each leaders in vividly contrasting disciplines, have set out to demonstrate that the helicopter can transcend its traditional role. Drawing on a unique blend of talents and skills, ‘l’Hélicoptère par Hermès’ is rooted in a straightforward concept: rise above narrow issues of style versus engineering, and restore the passenger to a position of pre-eminence.

The baseline for Hermès and Eurocopter was a reappraisal of the helicopter’s potential as a form of personal transportation, from an uncompromisingly user-centric point of view. With a determination to address even the most challenging design issues, ‘l’Hélicoptère par Hermès’ represents a new approach to the business aviation marketplace, and a unique opportunity for the partners to expand their activities into new territories.

“Rotary aircraft offer the crucial missing link in end-to-end transportation scenarii. It’s the ideal ‘first mile, last mile’ solution for getting between mid-town and the airport,” explains Eurocopter Senior Executive Vice President Philippe Harache. “Helicopters, given their flexibility, are a perfect complement to business jets. While growth in business aviation is robust—with promising upside potential in both the U.S. and other key markets—it is a segment that also places an extremely high premium on quality of design. Given its knowledge, background and expertise in addressing such demanding audiences, the House of Hermès represented the indispensable partner required to bring the project to maturity.”

Adds François Taverne, Chairman Hermès Gainier: “This is a genuine collaboration in industrial design and one that is unusual given our respective areas of expertise. By working so closely together, and combining the talent of Eurocopter’s engineers with that of our designer, Gabriele Pezzini, and our skilled craftsmen, both companies have taken a major step forward in improving the experience of travel by helicopter”.

The EC 135, Eurocopter’s best-selling light multimission, twinengined helicopter, was selected by the new combined team for its maiden effort. Combining a spacious cabin, ample storage compartment, unobstructed flat floors, room for four passengers and pilot, and lateral sliding doors, the EC135 provided an ideal template for the Hermès designer and craftsmen. Equally important was the aircraft’s unusually low noise signature, allowing it to operate both day and night in urban environments.

To date, over 700 examples of the EC135 have been sold, garnering praise from customers around the world who work in business aviation and other applications as varied as medevac, offshore, and public service missions.

Hermès’ distinctive signature is apparent across the aircraft’s design treatment. A minimalist, yet striking exterior paint scheme immediately sets the tone. Cognoscenti will notice a complete re-design of the helicopter’s landing gear, efficiently and elegantly easing access to the aircraft—just one of many important modifications Hermès proposed to Eurocopter.

Sliding doors open to reveal an interior configuration that is sober, light-filled and unexpectedly spacious. The cabin, completely redesigned by Hermès to maximise available space, reflects the quality and finesse of Hermès’ craftsmen, offering passengers a pleasing blend of functionality, refinement and comfort. Surfaces from floor to ceiling have been covered in ‘Toile H’, a signature Hermès canvas used to manufacture the firm’s travelware since the nineteen-twenties. Seats and banquette are handcrafted for exceptional comfort, and upholstered in calf leathers, naturally grained and highly resistant.

Addressing a commonly expressed wish, Hermès artisans have optimized the use of fabrics and leathers to soften ambient noise and vibration. Consoles, drawers and cabinets have been recessed or placed entirely out of view. A sliding glass partition now separates passenger compartment and cockpit, enhancing privacy while allowing light to enter from the aircraft’s fore-section. Overhead AC ducts have been center-aligned across the ceiling, providing passengers with cleaner, more symmetrical visual cues.

“Cumulatively, the passenger experience created by Hermès has exceeded our expectations, and is going to delight acquirers who value outstanding, yet unobtrusive design,” says Philippe Harache. “We set out to create a product that would add value and appeal for a highly desirable, but discriminating market segment. With ‘l’Hélicoptère par Hermès’, I can confidently say that we’ve kept our promise.”

First deliveries are scheduled for 2008, with aircraft availability world-wide.

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