French luxury brand Hermès honours its rich heritage with a new fine jewellery collection birthed from one simple item — the chain.
THE IDEA IS simple and basic, but the execution is transformative, and the presentation is mesmerising. Earlier last month in Paris, Pierre Hardy, a former dancer who is now creative director of Hermès jewellery, presented a dance performance. Imagine: a dancing couple, with arms interlocked, bodies linked, moving in rhythm. This is Hardy’s vision for the new Hermès fine jewellery collection, Enchaînements Libres, with the humble chain at the core of the collection.
This 29-piece collection of chain jewellery, reimagined in new dramatic forms and championing a play in proportion, carry designs that run from the bold to the delicate, and everything in between. The idea behind the new collection was to reconfigure the chain; pull the links of a chain apart and piece them back together in a construction that’s so supple, each new piece flows with the body’s movements. Here, Hardy unravels his chains of inspiration.
The chain is the central theme of the Enchaînements Libres collection. How did it inspire you?
At Hermès, the chain is a fundamental motif that draws on its origins as a harness-maker and saddler, and on a long tradition of chain-making know how. Taking the chain as a theme is choosing to pay tribute to this unique métier while exploring a shape, a form of great symbolic richness. To build the collection, I started by reflecting on links, their sequence, what connects micro to mega, the very human to the very abstract. The chain is what links scales and categories; it is a mathematical figure, like the torus and the Möbius strip. It connects and interconnects opposites, it attaches and liberates; it evokes strength, but also fluidity and softness.
How did you work with this strength of the chain in harmony with the body?
This story is from the August 2018 edition of T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
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This story is from the August 2018 edition of T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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