More Than A Feeling

A collection of light caresses and intimate gestures is how Creative Director of Hermès Jewellery Pierre Hardy describes Lignes Sensibles, a high jewelry range made to be as sensuous as a second skin.

- Charmaine Ho

The creative process is rarely a linear one. So it is for his latest 45-piece high jewellery collection, Lignes Sensibles (or Sensitive Lines in French), for which Creative Director of Hermès Jewellery Pierre Hardy cites a stream of inspirations. Circuits and grids inform the lines that wander across the body with the glow of soft-hued stones; words like “vibrations”, “pulsations” and “rhythm” are used to describe the audio alchemy of the creations. While other jewellers might be content to paint with light, it seems Hardy will settle for nothing less than a visual symphony. And much like the act of listening to an emotive score, Lignes Sensibles was designed for the pure pleasure of feeling and experiencing the jewellery.

“For this collection, I focused on individuality and subjectivity. Why does a woman decide to wear a particular piece of jewellery? How will this piece interact with her body, her skin or even her brain and heart? And what feelings will she have—not for the benefit of onlookers, but for herself?” he muses. “I think it’s a very intimate process. You choose to wear something because you really feel for it and it goes in harmony with yourself. And that is very Hermès because Hermès never does things for show. You do it for the pleasure, the balance, and the harmony that you can create between this object, whatever it is, and yourself.”

This dedicated focus on the inward gaze and the reverence for the human anatomy is perhaps why many have called this Hardy’s most intimate jewellery collection yet. And it shows in the pieces that seem to encircle the body like a lover’s tender embrace.