Hermès may have turned 175 this year, but age hasn't dimmed its capacity to innovate. The French heritage brand is firmly championing fashion's current love affair with all things digital through its latest installation - an interactive wall created by digital artist Miguel Chevalier.
Arriving this week at a new space within Selfridges' first floor Menswear department, the eight metre-long virtual reality wall projection - reminiscent of Chevalier's 'Binary Wave' artwork - is inspired by the A/W 2012 collection Hermès heavy silk twill ties, emblazoned with designs based on computer technology.
'8 Ties', as the installation is titled, taps into the digital symbols that have become inextricably linked to a 21st-century world. Pixels, USBs, cable jacks, and binary signs have been analysed and abstracted until the digital references have become charmingly subtle.
The result is a mesmerising movement of graphic pattern, activated by visitors' movements and scored with generative music by Jacopo Baboni Schilingi.
Chevalier, who has worked with computers as a medium since 1978, has also extended the digital experience to the Hermès boutique on the ground floor of Selfridges. A virtual book adapted from his 'Herbarius 2059' work takes visitors on an interactive tour through each of the tie designs, which have been accompanied with texts by philosopher Christine Bucki-Glucksmann.
An iPad control panel allows visitors to change the patterns on the interactive installation
The eight metre-long virtual reality wall projection - reminiscent of Chevalier's 'Binary Wave' artwork - is inspired by the A/W 2012 collection Hermès heavy silk twill ties
The ties, whose designs are all based on computer technology, are retailed alongside the installation in a new space within Selfridges' Menswear department
USBs, pixels, cable jacks and binary signs are broken down to their most basic form, creating a mesmerising projection of moving pattern
A recycling symbol is reinterpreted in one of the frames
The morphing patterns are activated by visitors' movements and scored with generative music by Jacopo Baboni Schilingi
ADDRESS
Selfridges
Menswear on 1
400 Oxford Street
London W1A 1AB
-
Gucci turns its windows into an endless library of books, artefacts and rare treasuresFeaturing a collaboration with artist Luca Pignatelli, ‘Endless Narratives’ unfolds in Gucci store windows worldwide – a reflection of creative director Sabato de Sarno’s broad cultural interests
-
Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025: Formafantasma revisits the masculine codes of modernist designFormafantasma wins a Wallpaper* Design Award 2025, for its Milan exhibition ‘La Casa Dentro’, which took to task the inherent masculinity and conservatism at the heart of modernism
-
Lesley Lokko reviews 2024's wins, shifts, tensions and opportunities for 2025Lesley Lokko, the British-Ghanaian architect, educator, curator, and founder and director of the African Futures Institute (AFI), has been an inspirational presence in architecture in 2024; which makes her perfectly placed to discuss the year, marking the 2025 Wallpaper* Design Awards
-
Scene-stealing runway sets from A/W 2022 menswear showsA Kubrickian space odyssey at Prada; a recreation of the Pont Alexandre III in Paris at Dior; and colourful, artist-created flags at Loewe: explore the best runway sets from the A/W 2022 menswear shows
-
Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2022: Louis Vuitton to Loewe, Dior to HermèsIn this extended report, Laura Hawkins reveals 9 highlights from Paris Fashion Week Men's A/W 2022. Including: Virgil Abloh's final collection for Louis Vuitton; Rick Owen's riff on sleaze; elfin-inspired accessories; and a celebration of slouch and surrealism
-
Last chance to see: Hermès celebrates craftsmanship in CopenhagenThe Parisian maison's ‘Hermès in the Making’ exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen, brings together its esteemed artisans under one roof, and celebrates the timeless power of craftsmanship and innovation – two tenets integral to timeless design today
-
Scene-stealing runway sets from S/S 2022 womenswear showsFrom giant roulette wheels to Olympic diving boards and multi-city synchronized extravaganzas – our pick of the best fashion show sets from S/S 2022 womenswear
-
Paris Fashion Week A/W 2021: discotheque chic to apres-ski sleek -
Clog on: why the slip-on shoe is the style of the seasonWe're clogging on for the new WFH-chic
-
Hermès A/W 2020 Paris Fashion Week Men’s -
Silk road: Hermès' Carré Club journeys to ParisHermès Carré Club, a multi-facted and interactive exhibition celebrating the French maison's famed silk scarf, opens at the Carreau du Temple in Paris
