时尚街拍网For 27 years, Pierre Hardy has designed the mens and womens shoes for Hermès – and, since 2001, the jewellery too.Its fair to say he knows his accessories.Bestriding both the highest level of functional design and the most exquisite materials available,his are collections rich in simplicity.Taking inspiration from geometry and everyday objects, his pieces can be fun and surprising and almost mathematical in their purity: the epitome of modern luxury.When you look at any object of Hermès you have this feeling of truth, says Hardy.There is no cheating or pretending.It is anti-gadget.And although he was part of the team that designed the Hermès Apple watch, well let him have that.
On a sofa at the brands Paris headquarters, in his signature black, squarish spectacles, white jeans, black T-shirt and trainers, he is as straightforward as a punctuation mark.American Vogue has called the 61-year-old designer fashions favourite brainiac and for all the evidence of his creativity – he studied fine art and was a dancer before becoming a designer – Hardy does have something of the scientist about him.Logical and untheatrical, he has a common-sense approach to the often smoke-and-mirrors business of creating luxury fashion.I like to get a lot of things done quickly, he says, with a smile that suggests no amount of haste could compromise his precision, so I can go on holiday.
His name may not have the same recognition factor as Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin, but his designs – whether for Hermès or his eponymous line, now part-owned by Hermès, or for Balenciaga, where he created shoes for Nicolas Ghesquière (including 2007s memorable robot-style Lego shoe) – boast a fierce quirkiness that has had a great influence on fashion footwear and attracts a passionate following.
When he arrived at Hermès in 1990, there was no existing shoe collection to speak of.Its a testament to his skill that some of the designs he went on to create look like they might have emerged in the 1950s.This seasons Paris loafer, with palladium-plated H buckle, could be an of-the-moment update on an original 1970s design.And the Oran sandal, with its leather upper forming the shape of an H, might have been worn by Jackie Onassis on vacation – except it wasnt released until shed been dead for three years.
I wanted to make a no-shoe, basically – like walking barefoot, says Hardy of the conception of that 20-year-old classic.A very simple sandal that any woman could wear, with a sole and a strap.I was looking at a drawing by an African tribe, a design the women used to paint on the houses, very graphic and beautiful.So we chose to adapt it to the shoe and it made an H. It wasntthe purpose at all, but when the shoe was done we saw it.For the spring/summer 1998 collection, Hardy created the Quick trainer, making Hermès the first luxury brand to design a trainer made entirely of leather, a huge innovation at the time.Its still going strong.Asked why their appeal has endured, he laughs.Why?I dont know!There is something that you cant explain.Im not a spiritual person at all,I dont believe in magic.I think its just the necessity of the thing.It makes sense and it becomes a shape or a reality.
But the secret of creating something that becomes a new classic might be found in the way Hardy evokes the past.A lot of the work is based on my memories, he says.And a lot of people have an image of Hermès based on their own recollections.Sometimes theyre different to the reality of what the thing was, but thats OK.What Im trying to do is to make new memories [for our clients].So I try to make something better;to give it a new shape and image.
He says hes neither nostalgic nor an archeologist who iscontinually diving into the archives.He doesnt even collect old shoes – something he used to do. Because when I look at some of them, the stitching up is 10 times smaller and the leather of the sole is unbelievably thin– [shoe-making] is not like this any more, he says.Nobody can produce this type of object now, so in a way its masochistic to even look.Now we have different tools that allow us to do more: unbelievable sneakers, crazy materials.So lets play with that instead.
Each year Hermès introduces a company-wide theme that will be the focus of all its collections.For 2017 that has been le sens de lobjet, the sense of an object.Hardy has chosen to riff on that in the shoe collection by including styles that feel weighty and solid.I wanted these pieces to be strong or beautiful before being a fashion item –a big sole, beautiful leather, something chunky.Like a beautiful box you look at and feel the reality and density and depth.On other pieces hes taken objects that have been used by Hermès for a long time, like metal rivets and buckles,using them as an ornament to show the beauty in a simple object.Some themes, he adds, are easier for a footwear designer to work to than others.I remember the year of The Hand...
Born in Paris, Hardys dual passions as a child were dance and drawing.He entered a contemporary dance company but made a choice to leave.Dance is not that open, he says.Its a very “inside world” to focus and work on, and I needed more contact with the outside.He taught scenography (the art of creating atmosphere in theatres) for seven years and began illustrating for magazines, such as Vogue Hommes and Italian Vanity Fair.He had no thought of being a designer.Its different because Im an old man now, but when I was 18 fashion was couture and I didnt want to be couture – there were only 10 couturiers in the world.So when I drew it wasnt as a career, or a project, it was just for fun.
But back in the 1980s fun could get you somewhere.An acquaintance began working in the Christian Dior studio and asked Hardy to come in and draw the shoe collection.And so began his career in shoes – although again, it didnt appear that way.There was no pressure, nor mountain of expectation.It was the beginning of the big fashion groups but there was no partition between luxury brands, there was no specification of luxury [as a market].Even if Dior was the biggest name in fashion it was still quite protected then, quite secretive.But accessories were about to become increasingly important to the emerging luxury houses and Hermès saw the man for the job.Three years later he was put in charge of a whole new collection.It would be hard,I say, for anything like this to happen to a young illustrator now.Yes, he laughs.Everything is impossible now.
Perhaps thats one of the reasons Hardy carried on his teaching at the Duperré fashion school in Paris for so long: to encourage the generations that followed him.Everything can be learnt and taught, he says.If you decide to become a painter, a doctor, an architect you have to learn it.I dont believe in the [idea of] genius.The energy that I put into my job now,I could put into anything else and do [well in] it.You have to learn the rules obviously.I was teaching methodology–creativity is a process in a way, but after that you can play.
