Hidden away on the northeastern edge of Paris is a workshop where fashion and home decor’s rarefied materials are given a second life. Its team of 10 artisans and designers have access to leather offcuts leftover from the creation of some of the world’s most coveted handbags, stacks of colourfully printed silks, bins of shiny buckles, and delicate tabletop crystal in a rainbow of jewel-toned hues.
In their hands, this flotsam and jetsam gathered from Hermès ateliers across France is reimagined as Petit H, a collection of curiosities that encapsulate the playful ethos and circular mindset of the Parisian fashion house.
Petit H was started by Pascale Mussard, a sixth-generation member of the Hermès family, in 2010.
A selection of these accessories and design collectibles is always on offer at the Hermès store on Rue de Sèvres in Paris. But from Nov. 4 to 29, Vancouverites will have access to a bounty of whimsical objets via a pop-up installation at the Burrard St. store, including Canadian landscape-inspired tables, stools and boxes featuring leather inlays of kayakers, polar bears and even racoons.
Earlier this year, Hermès opened the Petit H headquarters for a preview of how these wonders are conceptualized and created. “It is everything that is Hermès in a single object,” says creative director Godefroy de Virieu, sitting in a studio above the workshop surrounded by fine china, rolls of ribbon and boxes of buttons that will likely come together in something unexpected, from a bag charm to a saltshaker.
“You take a little bit of that, a little bit of that, a little bit of that…and this is what Petit H is. It really speaks well of what Hermès is in terms of creativity, materials, know-how.”
Petit H was started by Pascale Mussard, a sixth-generation member of the Hermès family, in 2010. One of her first assignments for de Virieu resulted in him combining a set of riding stirrups with a new slab of wood to create a swing, which he assembled in the French countryside for his young daughters.
Today, new materials including terracotta, concrete and cork are also part of the studio’s material palette, but serve as a link between reclaimed elements, not the aesthetic star of a piece.
As the stirrup swing illustrates, the house’s equestrian history permeates all of its métiers including Petit H. “The idea of functionality is really important,” de Virieu says. But a sense of joy-from-experimentation outshines any utilitarianism.
One recent project saw the inner structures of a stack of horse saddles reimagined as the back of a dining chair and the body of an electric guitar. “When you are a child, you play with what you have at hand. To compose, to combine – to make a treehouse,” de Virieu says. “That approach is really true at Petit H.”
What underpins this whimsy is an appreciation that what the studio has to work with is ephemeral. “Sometimes, we want to continue [making something] but the colour doesn’t exist anymore so we go to look at something else,” de Virieu says. For the studio’s artisans, a Petit H product represents a moment in time. “That makes it strong, because it’s never the same.”
The Globe and Mail Style Magazine travelled to Paris as a guest of Hermès. The company did not review or approve this article prior to publication.
