Hermès dans l'oeil de flâneur

Before the madness of fashion week kicked in I made sure to visit the Hermès pop-up exhibition on the Berges de Seine before it finished. It was a completely mad but completely cool exhibition and journey into the mind of a "flâneur".

Flâneur - a man who saunters around observing society

The exhibition itself literally encouraged you to wander and observe. It started in a white room with light projections all around and then you go through a giant wardrobe, whilst secretly reliving your childhood dream and hoping Narnia is on the other side. Then you wander along dark corridors with plastic horse heads in glass cabinets displays, sticking their tongues out whilst surrounded by gorgeous Hermès bags. You encounter solitary lamposts, a mix of dark silhouettes and light accents causing you to question the way you see and perceive even everyday objects.

The whole way round the exhibition offers your mind the chance to explore and form its own paths of thought of what you are seeing, and where it is taking you, all whilst giving an insight into the mind of Hermès, their strong heritage and history and the very essence of the maison. 

You round a corner and encouter a brasserie/bar (which I think should have served actual drinks), but its not just a "bar". It showcases jewellery so that they look like captured and preserved specimens in scientific experiments. It utilises tiny digital screens within ordinary, everyday objects such as the paint palette to really give the scene another dimension and a kind of 'out-of-this-world' feeling whilst being completely rooted in an 'everyday' surrouding. 

You leave the brasserie and round the corner and find you've wandered into downtown Manhattan, and all the walls have been emblazoned with bright graffiti and colour, with a real raw and undone edge, before following the next corner and finding yourself in an Alice in Wonderland enchanted, victorian/edwardian living room where the tea set lifts itself off the table and the chandelier makes you thirsty. 

I kind of want to describe the whole exhibition as bonkers but brilliant. It made use of modern digital technology to really encapsulate your mind and senses and to transport you a own little journey through not only your own mind but the mind of Hermès, through different places and periods, be they artistic, fashion, everyday life. Hermès has always retained a strong sense of its heritage and roots, and a particular 'savoir-faire' in terms of the quality of its products and I think this was a really great opportunity to not only see this displayed up close but to also have a better insight in to the more abstract side of how Hermès thinks and the notions of really exploring, wandering and discovering. 

I would thoroughly have recommended you check this exhibition out but since it has already finished I hope that this post can give you some insight or inspire some of your own thinking and i'll be looking out for any other Hermès popups in the near future. 

​http://lesailes.hermes.com/fr/fr/dansloeilduflaneur