Challenge

Each year, Hermès picks a theme for its windows. Often, this consists of only a single word. Following that, it’s down to the selected creative collaborator to interpret this, taking a broad theme and distilling it into a single powerful artistic direction.

One day, Hermès called upon us to answer the question – what is Lightness?

Insight

Hermès describe their windows as a ‘gift to the street’—a little theatre for passersby, an opportunity to pause and to dream for a moment. Our challenge was to inspire each visitor, whether a child or a grandmother.

Beyond inspiration, merchandising is essential. In Hermès windows, each skilfully crafted product plays its role in this theatre, interacting with the creative to tell a seamless story.

Solution

In response to Hermes’ theme of the year, Lightness, we explored various interpretations of the word – weightlessness, tranquillity, even effortlessness – and finally, luminosity. But what does a story about light look like? It may feel abstract, but simply put, light is how we see colours.

We imagined lightness as an artist who paints colours to everything we see in the universe. To ensure the flow of the narrative, we imagined the windows as chapters of a story, with the product as actors in the scenography, plucking pigments from the sun and painting them across the earth.

Through her travels, Lightness encounters Hermès products woven playfully into the story of each window; bracelets become smoke rings, gloves form the solar wings that power a spacecraft, and a silk tie trails from the engines of a space rocket.

Lightness appears across Hermés stores in Northern Europe, including Amsterdam, Oslo, and Stockholm, with various creative solutions in each location. However, there’s one store that goes above and beyond.

With 12 individual windows, Hermès’ Copenhagen is a sight to behold. Here, we included unique additions to Lightness’ adventures underpinned by unexpected and creative product highlights.