Handmade Hermès: Creative window displays in Shanghai by Zim & Zou
updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:21
The simple intricacy of something hand-crafted never fails to impress us – and the same goes for the new window displays by Zim & Zou’s artists in Hermés retail stores.
The French design studio Zim & Zou, consisting of Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann, collaborated with Hermès on a handmade window installation in Shanghai. Anchored in craftsmanship, the complementary and polyvalent duo used their favourite materials – paper and leather – to create displays in the French Maison’s storefront.
The décor combines a Museum of Natural History with a Cabinet of Curiosities resulting in intricate and colourful birds, crabs, fish, insects, butterflies and other biological species. The details, such as faces, paws and feathers, were meticulously cut and sculpted from paper, and using leather offcuts from Hermès workshops in Paris. Consequently, the two main windows depict air and water in which swims a 5-metre dinosaur paper skull; while the two smaller ones portray the Earth.
The entire project took around three months of detailed work by the French artists, with help provided by a local team of artisans in Shanghai. Immediately grabbing our attention and seducing passers-by, the hardwork was well worth the effort – so much so that we can almost forget the undeniably (very) high prices of Hermès itself.
Lindsay POUI-DI
