Thinking Outside The (Orange) Box

Pascale Mussard, the artistic director and the great, great, great granddaughter of Thierry Hermès has come up with a brilliant idea.  Since she was a child playing in the Paris atelier, Pascale began collecting scrapes of leather, crocodile skin, beautiful buckles, and trinkets.  The thought of repurposing these luxury materials into something new forms the "Petit h" collection.

Mussard explains, "The idea is simple: Since everything at Hermès is of the finest quality, and almost everything is made by hand, there are inevitable mistakes or imperfections that render otherwise flawless materials unusable."  A beautiful scarf that takes 300 people to make is rendered useless if there is one stain, one pull in the otherwise flawless silk. Why not make it into a unique accordion pleated necklace?  It's an idea who's time has not just come, but is way over due!

These perfectly imperfect materials are given to artists, and they must reuse the materials to invent something wonderful that did not previously exist.  A laboratory of sorts was set up, and the experiments commenced.  If a collaboration is really successful, it may be used in the "Grand h" collection.  Hermès will put it into production later on.

Mussard wants Grand h to be thought of as high end arts and crafts.  Quality materials being repurposed by creative designers that represent and respect the Hermès name.

There are 2,200 pieces in the traveling show.  Once they're gone, they're gone, because of the unique nature of the items being made based on the materials available.

Giant leather pandas, light fixtures from carafes (because of an air bubble), a leather clad swing, toys and games.  They are only limited by their imagination!

This one has got to be my favorite.  For the person who has everything this holiday season:  a cup cozy.  Your Starbucks in the morning will never look the same.  Mussard wanted everyone to be able to embrace a little Hermès in their lives.

Hurry, it's a traveling show.  It will be in New York and on line thru November 22nd.  Everyone needs a little Hermès in their life.  Don't they?



ph: luxist.com, Hermes, Dodo Designs