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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