Beyond Luxury: DAE's Morning Studio joins Hermès' Petit H initiative
In 2020, BA students from DAE's Morning Studio (formerly the Well-Being department) were invited to collaborate with Petit H, an initiative started by luxury brand Hermès to bring new life to the leftover materials from its ateliers.
Hermès takes great pride in the quality and longevity of its products and an approach to making that places knowledge, craft and people at the centre of the manufacturing process, including maintaining centuries-old skills in hand-making and finishing leather and textiles. It launched Petit H in 2010 to find new ways of bringing life to the byproducts of its making processes – leather, silk, metal and more. Since then, the brand has collaborated with some of the world's best-known designers on Petit H projects, including products and installations.
In 2020 it extended the same invitation to the students of DAE. Led by tutors Claire Warnier, Dries Verbruggen, Sander Wassink and Earlwyn Covington, students were split into three groups and tasked with collaboratively researching different aspects of sustainability related to Hermès and Petit H.
One group focused on the perspective of People. They addressed questions such as: what are the relations between people in Hermès and Petit h, how do they work together, what are the social and personal implications of working for, and with Hermès and Petit h? A second group focused on the perspective Planet: what are the resources used by Hermès and how do they flow to Petit h? And what other kinds of waste materials are there to consider? The last group focused on the perspective of Prosperity: how do Hermès and Petit h create an added value on different levels? How does this relate to social, economic, education and political trends in history?
Following this research phase, students were individually asked to select two entry points or topics to create two projects – one that focused on creating something from the waste materials provided by Hermès and the other concentrated on the mentality, processes and knowledge encapsulated within the brand and the Petit H initiative.
The results were a wide range of outputs, including products such as children's toy kits based on the Hermès saddle-stitch, narrative quilts and kites made from silk scarves, and a variety of vessels, holders and functional objects.
Projects focusing on the approach of Petit H included Barbora Stredova's exploration of the use of the colour orange as a tool for injecting spontaneity and joy into the every day, Alice Watel's research into creating a pattern that can reuse even the tiniest scraps of leather, and Sarah Collins' proposal for approaching wood life a leather crafter, exploring the pot nails of grain and movement.
A group of students chose to hone in on the idea of 'being' at Petit H and experiencing the environments within its store spaces, with Dana Savić reframing leftovers as museum pieces, Victoire de Brantes proposing an interactive leather installation and Yifan Wang imagining sourcing edible ingredients from the trail of the materials used by Hermès to create a Petit H Café.
A final group concentrated on 'living' like Petit H, with projects including in-store workshops, pop-ups to connect customers and artisans, an online platform for showcasing the work of craftspeople and objects for social distancing.
"It was only after visiting the Hermès ateliers and talking to its people that I truly understood what the company is all about. Hermès is about preservation, the preservation of focus and concentration, of reciprocity and kindness, of ownership and pride, of patience and care," said Thomas Lommée, head of the Morning Studio at DAE.
"The preservation of all those conditions that are currently being eroded by a world in overdrive but that are all so fundamental for building and maintaining a society that is truly healthy and humane. I'm therefore very grateful that our students have been able to enter this island of ease, and experience its grace. This experience will enable them to adopt these precious and carefully preserved qualities of the past and integrate them into the products and processes of the future."
