Hermès

I was invited to come up with a concept and design for the windows of Hermès Great Britain. Initially I started by writing a 5000 word book, which was to be told in chapters over the 19 windows that stretched across the country. It was a story loosely based on the god Hermes, his son Pan and the mysterious Echo who torments Pan's dreams. Pan sets off on a quest to find his Echo and embarks on a magical journey through the mortal lands, splashing colour into the souls locked in a miserable existence producing plain for the lands of commerce. Eventually he ends up in the golden city, bartering for a bar of gold to rescue his love, before the tragic ending involving Echo and a dead Narcissus.

It was very ambitious and the story got pared down to a simple story of a boy, who dreamed of a magical horse to take him to lands, far far away. He sets to work in the darkness of night and creates his horse with the help of his little mice friends. They make the horse from whatever could be found, bits of old chairs and scraps of wood.

Finally they set off across a treacherous sea, to a land that sparkles in the distance.

Meanwhile a tribe of mice who inhabit the island mistake the oncoming strangers for gods that the omens had been warning would arrive, for as long as anyone can remember.

The group are captured and led through the dark forest in makeshift contraptions the mice had been diligently making. With pulleys and ropes they drag the sorry bunch to the pyramids where the tribal mice perform a ceremony and drum and chant them all into a trance before they are transported into the cosmos and forever live amongst the stars. That's how Pegasus was born in case you wondered.

It was all created in my studio with a small team of craftspeople, working for 5 months to produce every little detail of the magical trip. It was an incredible experience to have been given the opportunity to dream up such a thing and be able to invest the amount of time in realising it.

Photos by Andrew Meredith

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