LES FACÉTIES DE PÉGASE
Greek mythology is a rich storehouse of thousands of tall tales, nourishing the Western cultural tradition. One of its most famous stories is that of the winged horse Pegasus. The Gorgon Medusa, a dangerous creature with snakes for hair, turned anyone who looked her in the eyes to stone. Perseus killed her by cutting off her head. Chrysaor and Pegasus sprang from her severed neck. By a fantastical metamorphosis, a land-locked animal is transformed into a creature of the air. But another transformation lies in store. Captured by Bellerophon – who tries to ride the flying horse to heaven, and plummets to his death in a fall – Pegasus becomes a constellation of stars. Inspired by this double identity, Dimitri Rybaltchenko presents a sparkling, multi-faceted portrait of the divine mount, whose symbolic power has inspired artists and poets throughout history.
Design by Dimitri Rybaltchenko
LE JARDIN DE LEÏLA
‘This garden is possessed of the powers of its deep soil, imprinted with Roman ruins, and nourished by the humus of all the seasons.
I entered this world at the age of ten, via the beach that runs next to it. By chance? Or fate – I have never left.
Vines take root in the vast trees, their strange, almost animal blossoms adding to the climate of mystery. Time becomes fluid, impalpable. This kingdom of plants is inhabited by the murmur of wind in the bamboo, by birdsong and the melodious croaking of frogs from the depths of the ponds. And so I walked straight to the heart of this surreal, natural scene, which later became the source of inspiration for my decorations for Hermès.
Anyone entering this place is struck by the graceful beauty of its elements: they will embrace you, or escape you, reconstruct you in the image of your vision of the world, your sensibility, your relationship to the elements.
Do we not say that a garden is the image of Paradise?’
Leïla Menchari
Design by François Houtin
MYTHIQUES PHOENIX
In a fabulous blaze of plumage, the phoenix rises from its ashes. This huge mythical firebird of surpassing beauty, the mount of the gods, lived for several hundred years before burning away in a nest of twigs scented with frankincense and myrrh so it could revive. The phoenix is a bird of the south, of heat, summer and sunshine… and its city is Heliopolis. The Greeks named it with their word for the tree where the god of light, Apollo, was born. This was the date palm (phoinix in Greek), cultivated since the earliest Antiquity and which the ancients held as a model of fertility and longevity. In China, the Taoists call it the cinnabar bird, from the red mercuric sulphide which is a universal symbol in alchemy. And then it is just a step from the roman god Mercury to his Greek counterpart Hermes… Myths have the wonderful ability to take us on a journey in history without actually moving and this carré acts as a messenger, surrounding the mythical bird with the leaves and fruit of date palms.
Dessin de Laurence Bourthoumieux
