HERMÈS

— Pop-up Store

Elisa Ossino Studio has designed the new Hermès pop-up store dedicated to silk. The project was born from the request of the Maison’s art directors to create a new exhibition concept in which visitors are invited to directly interact with the products.
One of the main design ideas was to transform the iconic Hermès silk carré into strong elements of characterization of the space by presenting them on colored-matching boiseries in order to enhance the collection’s palettes.
As requested by Bali Barret and Christophe Goineau, artistic directors for women's and men's at Hermès, the entire space has been designed to ensure that each carré can be viewed: through rotating vertical displays with silks divided into color families, mobile paintings hanging on the walls showing different patterns through a sliding movement, a display wall entirely covered with hanging carrés that allows the visitors to appreciate their full beauty, counter displays where the customer can scroll the various designs and choose the favorite one; and finally, from the outside, the store windows welcome mobiles, self-moving sculptures made with the various formats of the carrés. Another central feature of the project is the dominant presence of color in the space and patterns on the floors crossing the various rooms with chromatic variations from the brightest to the darkest tones. The design of the furnishings focuses on the use of pure geometric shapes in a continuous alternation between rounded volumes and linear elements. The passages between the different exhibiting areas are highlighted by two large portals that invite to cross the spaces.

Hermès Via Condotti, Roma
Photography Giorgio Possenti

At the end of the path, a door leads visitors to a room that houses an interactive installation curated by Elisa Ossino and produced by Kokoschka Revival. An environment dedicated to emotion that creates a dialectic relationship between the place of doing and that of "dreaming". The installation features two large screenings of the silk foulards’ designs. Entering the illuminated set, the visitor’ silhouette is displayed in real time, and the shape is filled with another contrasting foulard design. The body in motion creates graphic games, inviting those who approach to improvise with creativity and fun. The Klein blue monochromatic space was designed to provoke an immersive perceptual experience, inducing viewers to become involuntary actors. Here the concept of the entire project is sublimated with an emotional experience. The images of the iconic carrès, randomly appearing during the interaction, are fixed in personal memory as they are linked to the lived emotion.