Luxury group Hermès opens renovated store in Chicago

On the ground floor, customers are welcomed by men’s and women’s silk before proceeding, under the soft Grecques lights, to men’s ready-to-wear on the left. The homeware collections are showcased on a podium by the central and existing curved staircase, whose structure was kept and cladding revamped, which organises the whole space, conveying its undulations to the interior partitions and ceiling.

For the interiors, an assemblage of natural elements such as stone and wood with metal and felt, the Parisian architecture agency RDAI has combined the city’s dark brown tones with the frozen lake’s bluegrey shades. Level one’s floor consists of a carpet bearing the Faubourg pattern with another circular one highlighting the staircase. Their unique shape and design are an organic nod to stone canyons, while the walls follow a colour gradient going from dark chocolate on the ground floor to pink, beige and white stucco on the upper floors. Even the furniture is slightly curved to remind visitors of leaves delicately wrapped in the wind

The décor comprises original artworks gleaned from the Emile Hermès collection such as photographs by Japanese Yuji Obata and Tomio Seike, who pay homage to the photographer Wilson Bentley, named 'Snowflake', or the portrait of a horse by the French painter Louis Robert Heyrault. An equestrian picture, by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, hangs alongside a painting by Ellen Lesperance and a collage by William Steiger. Along with some of Nigel Peake’s pieces, works by Antoine Carbonne, French sculptor Christian Renonciat, and black-and-white photographs of American jazzmen Cozy Cole and Dizzy Gillespie are also showcased, the company said in a press release.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)