Inside Hermès' New Pop-Up Café
Ever since its stunning tableware collaboration with colourful, geometric artist Nigel Peake, Hermès has been thinking flowers. The vibrant plate and bowl collection, dreamily entitled "A Walk in the Garden" and launched earlier this year, was a triumph of spring in simple, bright patterns.
Now, Hermès has brought these images to life with a striking pop-up cafe on the second floor terrace of its chic New Bond Street store, which can be accessed from the interiors department. The space has been transformed into an abstract garden landscape by leading set designers Isabel + Helen.
Visitors can wander through the outdoor courtyard where hundreds of flowers have seemingly sprung up as spheres on long white stalks. Oranges, reds and pinks flow seamlessly from one to another in a false meadow of undulating colour.
The effect is contemporary, and visually grand despite the simple premise: 3,000 floating ping-pong balls somehow transformed into a piece of streamlined nature. Among them stand minimalist white tables and stools, where visitors can sit and sample the hot drinks and petit fours the café will be offering. The simplicity of the furniture is the perfect match for the flowers: a contrast to the colours, but a match in their curved edges and narrow legs.
Most of the tableware used by the café is retailed by the brand, allowing shoppers to enjoy and sample some of the crockery on offer.
Open until mid-July, the space will undoubtedly play host to a range of Instagram photos. It is as effortlessly cool as the French brand no doubt intended, a peaceful retreat from the bustling sound of the high street below.