Humber Attends The Hermès Festival Des Métiers

By: Tamara Arnew

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

There are a few instances in fashion that are movingly beautiful. Where emotions overcome everything that you know so far from this industry and the philosophies of beauty that we choose.  You are certain that your eyes have never seen something so bewilderingly magnificent and cannot quite describe how abstract things: a textile, a feel, an idea, a shape, can be so heart-stirring. Things seem to stop in this moment of colour, as they do when we are not often awe-inspired. This stopping point might very well look like an Hermès scarf. 

HERMÈS AT TORONTO'S DESIGN EXCHANGE
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW 

This is what the Hermès Festival Des Métiers brings, for the first time in it's three years of travelling, to Toronto's Design Exchange as an exhibit and to the Humber Fashion Arts Students who attended Friday's opening events. That the stopping point, the moment of colour, the fluidity of the most treasured scarves is created by someone. Craftspeople, who showcase the artistry of their trade in the space— who, even after seeing such display of their mastery, keep Hermès tradition a mystery. 

ENGRAVER'S WORK STATION
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

The blueprint for Hermès was drawn 176 years ago. For a century their craftspeople were saddle-makers, working leather and constructing trees. The atelier began making scarves in 1937— first printing using a wood-block technique that stamped the scarves with four blocks. The process transformed to stretched silk on a frame and warped wood led to steel. Amongst the throws of the Second World War, there was an opportunity for further innovation. Parachute nylon collected by the design house to be stretched on canvas. Today, the printing process uses a sophisticated polyester mesh. Kamel Hamadou, head of the silk-printing atelier at Hermès and demonstrator of his "heart and craft", suggests however, that although "innovation is a great thing, tradition is better." Their by-hand process remains the same, regardless to material developments that would cause hurry. 

SILKSCREENING DEMO AND THE 46-DYE SCARF
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

PRINTING A 14-DYE SCARF, IN ONE HOUR
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

A scarf becomes illustrated in about an hour's time at the Festival Des Métiers with a design consisting of 14 dye colours. Out of the 75,000 hues that Hermès colourists have created and mixed to work with, 27 are typically selected to appear in a scarf's print. The "Cosmogonie Apache" scarf that Hamadou speaks to during the printing process, consists of 46 dyes with 15 screens building up depth in the face alone. It is the most layered of any of the Hermès' designs over the past 76 years.  The work that we see within this festival timeframe is comparable to watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel in a day without err. Each scarf takes two years to create and may become irrepairably damaged at every pass of dye, in each step of the processing treatment and in the details of finishing the edge. 

PROGRESSION OF THE SILK SCREEN
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

FINI! THE COMPLETED WORK
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

With designs being inspired and fabricated so far in advance by the atelier's engravers it is nearly impossible to conceptualize the creative process behind their work. Hamadou touches on the sentiment, noting that "When you are free, you can create." Twenty craftspeople dedicate a lifetime of study, apprenticeship and work to the house designing

ten to-be paintings on silk for each season, Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter, as well as colour and screen development for two ten piece re-addition collections. Current work is focused on pieces for 2015. Each set of screens constructed is used for the entirety of the printing of one piece of the elaborate patterns, as much a part of their artfulness as the dyes themselves. Hermès holds an honour that is easily forgotten in our abrupt course of direction. Their innovation is in kept traditions and the appreciation of what elaborate craft is inspired from the weaving of a butterfly cocoon   

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW

HERMÈS SCARVES AT FESTIVAL DES MÉTIERS
PHOTO CREDIT: TAMARA ARNEW 

Special thanks to the Toronto Design Exchange and the craftspeople from Hermès for inviting Humber's Fashion Arts Students to share in this experience. 

Sources: Toronto Design Exchange, Another Mag, Hermes.com