Hermès unveiled its latest annual theme of 2021 - The Human Odyssey. The carré Faubourg Tropical caught the Hermès scarf collectors’ eyes instantly by its misty, mysterious and magnificent tropical rainforest depiction with the iconic Hermès 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré store in Paris at its centre. Faubourg Tropical was designed by Octave Marsal and Théo de Gueltzl for Hermès in Spring/Summer 2021. As described in the Hermès catalogue, “The first Hermès store opened at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris in 1880, in a building of modest dimensions that also housed saddlery workshops and private apartments. The current neoclassical façade is the result of audacious building work carried out between 1924 and 1926, extending upwards to create additional floors and a surprising roof terrace. It is from this terrace that the exuberant tropical forest designed by the duo of Octave Marsal and Théo de Gueltzl appears to unfurl. Cheetahs, monkeys and cockatoos blend into this botanical canopy, which also conceals the unexpected figure of the mounted cavalryman from the top of Faubourg Saint-Honoré, who has escaped to the jungle.”
Photo courtesy to Hermes
According to the designers, Octave Marsal and Théo de Gueltzl's information posted on their Instagram accounts, the carré design was inspired by the Amazon Forest and its biodiversity. Théo de Gueltzl started to draw two years ago during a trip to Brazil. Brazil is the largest country in South America that contains about 60% of the Amazon River basin, with approximately 4,100,000 square km (1,583,000 square miles) and more than 1,100 tributaries. The Amazon river is the largest river in Brazil and the second-longest in the world. Amazon forest has the world's most extensive primaeval rainforest with exquisite waterfalls and massive Pantanal. As the Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% of the world's oxygen, it is referred to as the 'Lungs of the Planet', also the home to millions of species of animals, plants and insects.
At the centre of the carré, the designers depicted the 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré store in Paris with a tropical plants crown on the rooftop, decorated with monstera, elephant ear plants, palms, aechmea fasciata etc., and it is also the paradise to cockatoos. Based on the significant annual theme - The Human Odyssey, the 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré store’s drawing is identical to the existing building in Paris and drawn to scale accurately, which is appreciated. For example, the details of the French style decorative neoclassical façade finishes on the building’s exterior, the gracious balconies, the enormous arch windows with extended awnings on the ground floor, the number of squares in the muntin windows on the upper floor, and the interlacing reflections on glasses.
Step into the Faubourg Tropical full of vigour and vitality, along a stream, a tiered waterfall with three vertical leaps hidden in the tropical rainforest. The artists drew the water movement, light and shadow with different forms of fine lines meticulously to lead our eyes around the composition of a little clam stream, the voluminous waterfalls and a river with the undercurrent.
Special Thanks to the Hermès Scarf Designer Octave Marsal for leaving the comment on my Instagram!
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