In a special exhibition, the Hermes Singapore flagship store at Liat Towers has been transformed to spotlight the luxury French brand’s collection of home furnishings and bespoke creations.
Described as a “gallery of whimsy and surprise”, the Through The Walls exhibit was crafted by set designers Jean-Christophe Vaillant and Herve Sauvage. It shifts the focus from the brand’s iconic scarves and Birkin handbags to tableware, lighting, wallpaper and furniture.
Leather, a reminder of Hermes’ start as a saddlemaker, is used imaginatively, as is bamboo crafted with carbon fibre and steel to form seats. The centrepiece of the installation is a closet for scarves that resembles a leather wallet from the outside and stores up to 130 pieces.
Hermes co-deputy artistic director Charlotte Macaux Perelman says Singapore is an ideal location for the exhibition given the brand’s presence in the city since the 1970s. “We have never had a home-furnishings event here or really highlighted our home collection,” she says.
It took two weeks to transform the top two levels of the store to showcase more than 120 objects from the Hermes home universe, including the brand’s new Lien d’Hermes collection.
The retail space has been reworked as a “home” to give an appropriate setting for the objects.
A feature is the stairwells of the store where wallpaper from the collection has been ripped and layered decoupage-style. In one corner, a dining table looks as though it had been pushed through a wall while elsewhere a coffee table appears to have fallen through the roof.
There are even such whimsical touches as sounds: a cat meowing, a door closing, birds’ wings flapping. But the deconstructed world starts in the store windows, where neon signs for the event are framed by plates broken in half.
“As a brand, our pieces are undoubtedly quite traditional and rigorous, but we like to introduce fantasy as well, especially in things like our textiles, wallpaper and tableware,” says Perelman.
Through The Walls runs until October 29.