BackHermes: Details of obsessions
Hermes artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas on the intense emotional and creative impetus that goes behind design in general and typography in particular
Premium
One of the highlights of BaselWorld 2015 was the new collection from Hermes christened Slim d’Hermès. Slim and elegant, what we truly enjoyed about the piece was its focus on elegant typography. At Basel, Mint Indulge spoke to Pierre-Alexis Dumas, great-great-great-grandson of the founder of Hermes and its artistic director, about the intense emotional and creative impetus that goes behind design in general and typography in particular. Edited excerpts:
The new Slim d’Hermès collection is wonderful. It is slim and elegant, of course. But the typography is superb. I don’t say this often about watches. But this is both new and classical at the same time.
Have you met Philippe Apeloig who designed it? He is a true master. And I mean what I say. There are masters of typography all over the world. But they are usually very humble people and don’t put themselves forward. But working with him and listening to him has been a learning experience for me. This is why I call him a master.
But when do you know, in the lifecycle of a new collection, that you are going to worry about typography? When does someone like Philippe Apeloig even come into your consciousness?
The first time I really thought about typography, in my life, was when I took a typography class in college. And I’ve been obsessed with it since, personally. There is nothing more difficult in the world of design than typography. It is what I like to call a silent force. People don’t think about it. But it has a deep impact on the brain and visual experience. And even in the way you perceive meaning. Because usually typography is used to show words.
I got my first Hermes watch at the age of 18. An Arceau. I loved the typeface of that watch. Which is slightly curved. It enhanced the movement and the shape of the watch. So I was always impressed by the typeface and Henri d’Origny who designed it. A great man, but also a humble and generous man.
So I understood when I got that watch, even before I joined Hermes, the relationship between font and shape. That object gave me an emotion...a certain pleasure. It made my heart rise.
You see, there is a child inside all of us. We suppress it. But it wants to come out and play. But we keep telling this child...not now. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe later. Maybe next weekend. When we find some free time to play.
But sometimes when you hold an object in your hand, this child awakens. It is made to feel happy. That is what happens when I hold that watch in my hand. This is why I have always been obsessed with typeface when we start work on a new watch. Henri is still with us. But he has been designing for 57 years. So we need to find younger talents. And that is where Philippe Apleoig came in.
What was the process like?
It all started inside out. That is how Philippe Delhotal, who is creative director of our watches, works. He started with the slim movement, and from that he developed the case. And then he met Apeloig and told him how we wanted the watch to have a lightness, and the essential fact that the font, like the movement, had to be extremely discrete and elegant and minimal. But yet it had to have personality.
How did Apeloig respond to that challenge? I am ass uming it was a different kind of challenge for him.
He was very excited. He had never worked at that kind of scale before. Text in a book is not like text on a watch. It is a very unique scale for typography. But I am happy that I brought someone from the universe of posters and graphic design into watches. Because the watch industry needs that kind of disruption. I call this innovation by transfer. You find an idea in engineering and you apply in craft. Or vice-versa. And this kind of thing is missing in the watch industry.
But that is my job. In my job as creative director of the brand, we work with so many different things. So I asked Apeloig who was working in brand identity to help make a watch. In the same what that my father asked Henri d’Origny who was designing ties to make watches. And he became a great watch designer.
So that is perhaps my job. To have that intuition. You are quite clearly the type of person who approaches creativity from an...emotional perspective. But you also have a business to run. How do you bridge the emotional and the commercial?
I am a strong believer in a brief. Imagine if you win the lottery and you are able to work with the architect of your dreams, to build the house of your dreams. Imagine that without any budget constraints. So you are going to call this architect. And you are going to tell him: design me the most beautiful house. If he is an honest architect, he should come back to you. And ask you: what do you mean most beautiful? What does a dream house mean to you? And you have to tell him.
If he doesn’t clarify, then he is going to build his most beautiful house. Not yours. What is interesting is his interpretation of your dream. And that is what Hermes is all about. So I can work with any creative talent. But the brief is always Hermes. Anybody we work with must try to interpret their vision of Hermes. This is how we bridge emotion and brand. And this is extremely important.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
