fotis evans creates otherworldly window displays for Hermès SS17 collection

Hermès has invited london-based designer fotis evans as a guest artist to create a series of window installations on madison avenue that showcase the ready to wear SS17 collections, accessories, footwear and homeware with transversal details. throughout the history of Hermès, a lot of its craft is transferred from one métier to another. horse saddle straps, ropes, rings, stirrups, and prints, can all be found in the intricate details of the brand’s handbags, scarves, belts, jewellery, plates, chairs and so on. the installation will be on view until april 2017, with a few more displays that will take place across the USA like beverly hills, chicago, miami and waikiki, during the spring season.

women’s flagship store, second window
all images © skot yobauje

fotis evans‘ window installations for Hermès are an effort to depict a world of architecture and design fabricated through the historical feed, which is archived online today. to achieve this, the designer proposes a sculptural furniture collection of cabinets and dressers that follow the reimagined dadaist and surrealist techniques — such as bulletism, collage and fumage. these are expressed with the use of aged and stained materials or cut-out architectural volumes of bricks, concrete, brass beams, rusted steal, travertine, and blackened iron. in the end, all are applied in an alternative furniture world context, visually challenging the laws of physics by balancing and hanging the pieces.

window 3 – sculptural furniture pieces follow the surrealist and dadaist techniques

furthermore, highly polished mirroring stainless steel details interact with the installations and the street itself. on one hand they reflect parts of ‘the set’ while on the other, they evoke parts of the infinite movements witnessed on madison avenue. this echoes the union of ‘two distant realities’ to create a third one — where history is maintained, reimagined, altered and renewed in an endless circle of visual information feed. 

window 4 – aged and stained materials are used in the installations, like rusted steels and travertine

on the opposite side of madison avenue, fotis evans continues his work with three experiential rooms displayed on the store windows. reimagined from the utopian brutalist architecture, concrete and chalk volumes create infinite echo-free spaces that attempt to make the crossing of 691 madison and 62nd street a point of personal reflection within an imaginary and quiet realm.  ‘fotis evans has always worked with the idea of deconstructing already existing sets or objects and reimagining them in his own contemporary universe always echoing the past, yet always escaping the banal’.

window 5- cut out architectural volumes are displayed as hanging or balancing pieces

men’s flagship store, front façade

men’s store, first window display 

window 2 – the electric blue pattern in the back borrows the quality of brustalist architecture

window 3 – bright colors and lighting reflect the dynamic movement of madison avenue

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: lea zeitoun | designboom