‘Why is it that an object has an aura?’

Amidst the cacophony of Milan Design Week, there are always a small handful of shows each year that set the agenda and become talking points for everyone attending. In the decade or so since Hermès first showed its homeware at Milan, its exhibition quickly emerged as a bellwether, not just in the week, but in the annual calendar; Hermès shows appear on moodboards of design houses, years later. Rich in texture, narrative, materials and meticulous detailing, the Hermès shows are benchmarks of quality, expression and inspiration that live on.

This year, visitors to La Pelota, the post-war former swimming pool on Via Palermo, were surprised this year to witness a starkly different approach by the French luxury house. The cavernous space was a white box, brightly lit, with various geometric-shaped boxes suspended in the air, each housing a different novelty. Pools of coloured light were reflected on the floors beneath the boxes. Increasingly, when everyone else at Milan was concerned with layers of context and theatrical stagings, Hermès took a different approach: clinical, pristine, ethereal and otherworldly. Stepping into the room was like entering a hallowed, sacred space - or an operating theatre. The essence of the showcase was to encourage us to consider the emotion of an object, laid bare in all its glory. ‘Inside the box is the latent object, the perfect object, the power of imagination, on the threshold of an intermediate world. It is not an illusion,’ read the official statement.

Such an unforgiving setting asks a lot of the objects on show. These boxes weren’t mere plinths, but more like inverted altars, inviting us to worship their contents, or at the very least, to study each display with forensic attention. Only Hermès could be confident of the quality of their homeware to be so bold, and this year’s collection had moments of exquisite beauty, intrigue, charm - as always. Standout pieces included Tomás Alonso’s coloured glass side tables with a swivelling cedar box for a surface, Amer Musa’s cashmere throws and Nigel Peake’s hand-painted, geometric porcelain collection.

If the Hermès show leads the way as the poster-child of Milan Design Week, what are we to take from this show? What does it say about the times in which we find ourselves, in design and beyond? As visitors emerged from this controlled environment, blinking into the Spring sunshine, there was a general sense of bewilderment. Where were the stories and the materials, the echoes of process that proliferate as hallmarks for integrity elsewhere? Perhaps these heavily contextualised displays that we’ve come to expect serve, beyond storytelling, as distraction from the objects themselves. Maybe it’s time we looked more closely to consider the essence of things as they are, in design and life.

Charlotte Macaux Perelman, architect and artistic director of Hermès collections for the home with Alexis Fabry are the masterminds behind Hermès scenography, and they sat down with Wallpaper* to explain their process and journey to this radical departure.

Wallpaper*: This is a very different and striking exhibition approach compared to your previous shows, and also against the prevailing theme of theatricality elsewhere in Milan. I’m interested to hear what the idea was behind the change of direction from shows that have been rich in materials to this spectacle of white boxes?

Charlotte Macaux Perelman: We challenge ourselves to keep moving. Even yesterday we were already asking ourselves what we might do next year. Our starting point is to look at the values of Hermès. Last year we looked at the Hermès legacy of materiality. This year we asked ourselves: ‘Why is it that an object has an aura? Why is it that gives any object a particular presence? How does a neutral object acquire an emotional connection with a human?’

Alexis Fabry: A few years ago Tomás Alonso designed a lamp for Hermès. During an interview, when asked what defines an Hermès object, he replied: ‘Something that is rightly done; well done.’ In the years since, we have often quoted Tomás on the subject of ‘rightness’. And over the last year we realised we should go further and express something deeper than materiality. In this show, we are examining the inestimable qualities of the object itself.

W*: It’s interesting that the scenography elsewhere in Milan this year is richly layered and contextualised, more concerned with showing objects in real life settings. Here, you have abstracted the object, allowing us to focus on the pieces forensically. Was your intention to invite us to build a connection between viewer and object without distraction?

AF: Yes - we have in the past shown objects in specific contexts. A great aspect that distinguishes Hermès from other houses is its confidence in the so-called ‘rightness’ of an object. Hermès is willing to invest in the long-term to ensure any object is absolutely brought to life in the right way. Such faith in the object itself means we do not have to rely on context or communication to support or tell its story.

W*: Tell me about some of the works that represent the ethos of the collection.

CMP: We love Tomás Alonso’s table. It is interesting that we have used industrial glass in combination with a beautifully crafted tray, exemplifying the quality of Japanese woodwork. The clash between the two materials is intriguing. In the past, we would have concentrated more on the crafted wood, and less on the industrial glass. This layering of two different materials and material approaches demonstrates that we have evolved. It feels right for now.

AF: This table is truly miraculous. We describe Tomás as a tightrope walker. If you look at the tray atop the glass and the way it rotates, it is so precise in mechanism, construction and movement, it is Tomás demonstrating his skill as a tightrope walker.

W*: How do you work together?

CMP: We are lucky that there are two of us. We reinforce our convictions, if we hesitate or feel a little swamped, then we strengthen each other mutually. There’s an unspoken trust between us.

AF: We agree so often that Charlotte and I sometimes ask ourselves if one of us is perhaps superfluous. That said, we always look at objects from a different viewpoint so, even though we converge, we come from separate standpoints, which is interesting - we bring different perspectives to a shared conclusion.

W*: When you first showed in Milan, it was as if we were being shown the craft within design; the celebration of craftsmanship, skill, expertise and material intelligence. With your latest offering, it feels like we are celebrating the art of design. Is this a conscious evolution or a reflection of the times in which we live and our values therein?

CMP: Perhaps the white box approach reminds one of art galleries. I don’t think this was our inspiration or concern. We wanted to have a contrast with our show last year, of course. But the idea was to encourage examination of feeling; to explore what gives an object an emotionally involving presence. The question we asked ourselves is simple: what is it within an object that touches us? There is great craft, skill and quality here but each object has a primary intention in its manifestation too. The white universe lays this bare.

AF: We were attracted by the idea of exposing these limits: our points of strength and perhaps also our weaknesses. By questioning inherent emotional values within objects, we are examining something opaque and mysterious. Why is it that some designs manage to emit this and some don’t, even though they have been made in the same environments? Is it about the objects themselves, or is it something within us?

hermes.com