French artist honours Abu Dhabi through Hermes window display

On June 1, French luxury house Hermes opened the doors to a new store in Abu Dhabi. Set on the ground floor of the Galleria Mall on Al Maryah Island, the flagship replaces the recently shuttered space in Etihad Towers.

Designed by Parisian architectural agency RDAI, the store echoes the curves of the mall's main building, its fluid lines highlighted with walls covered in handmade champagne wallpaper, smooth oak countertops and bespoke carpets inspired by sea urchins and shells, with waved patterns in light pink, ochre and blue.

Introducing women's silks, with a central space dedicated to watches and jewellery, Hermes Abu Dhabi houses both men's and women's fashion, homeware and – as befitting its saddlery heritage – all manner of equestrian goods. Aimed at a clientele that prefers discreet luxury, the store is imbued with an air of elegant precision.

To celebrate the opening, Hermes invited French artist Vincent Olinet to create a site-specific art installation to form the store's first window display. Speaking with The National, Olinet outlined the thinking behind his work.

“I imagined a landscape that stretches under the sea. We are diving and seeing what is happening,” he explains.

Olinet's design, set against rippling blue walls, transports bystanders to an underwater world, looking up to the surface at the underside of a small boat, from which an oversized anchor chain tumbles. Surrounded by seahorses and giant clam shells, the chain is painted in vibrant yellow, orange and coral to echo the famous Hermes palette.

Lit from within, the glowing installation takes inspiration from Abu Dhabi's rich maritime history, mixed with the rounded links of the Hermes anchor chain used across the brand's bags and jewellery.

While the work was uniquely created for the UAE store, it is not Olinet's first experience working with the French maison.

“It started a few years ago with an invitation to do a window, which was supposed to be for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival,” he says. “I couldn’t do it in the end, because of Covid. But I got another invitation for the store in Omotesando, Tokyo.”

That design resulted in a second commission for the new store inside Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, where Olinet used paper lanterns for the first time, a motif he has returned to for Abu Dhabi. Made from thin paper, hand-painted and stretched over a metal frame, the installations are lit from within to bring them to life.

“I know how fascinating it looks,” he says, “and they are all handcrafted.”

As an artist, Olinet is known for creating works that turn expectations upside down, such as book shelves made from slices of buttered bread, tables laid with frozen flowers left to slowly thaw, and huge, lopsided cakes made from layers of resin.

Playing with perception is crucial to him, as it creates a “kind of poetry”.

“For me that is where art is,” he says. “I love to work by hand. I don’t like to use a machine or sophisticated tools. I am not shy to be a bit crazy and make things look unusual. I love that we can see the world from a new perspective just by shifting a few things.”

While the results are strikingly beautiful, the start of his design process is rather more crude. In this case, the initial sketches he shared with Hermes, he laughingly admits, were “pretty rough”.

“Luckily, I have found a metalwork company that can interpret my drawings and understand what it is supposed to look like. They make a metal frame, and then I have a team here who help cover it in paper, and I paint it myself with water colour.

“If I make a mistake with the painting, I have to restart the whole paper process. So I have to be very sure,” he says.

As with any artistic process however, a mishap can sometimes create the unexpected. “I will consider it well before I destroy it. Maybe it’s a mistake, but it’s part of the work. And I like that Hermes respects that; it doesn’t push me to have a special finish like its own objects,” he says.

And an imperfect feel is integral to his work, he explains.

“This enhances the handmade touch I look for. This fragility is the same when I work with sugar or ice, and I like that the artwork is really fragile. It brings some value.

“At the end of the journey it looks different, but it has integrity with things I didn’t expect to happen. So, I let such hazard and chance exist.”

Now on his third collaboration with the house, Olinet explains that with each project, he is given increased space to explore. “I have always loved the Hermes aesthetic and universe. The more I work with Hermes, the more they let me follow my intuition and make what I desire. I have a lot of freedom,” he says. “As an artist, it really is a blessing.”