NEW YORK — Godefroy de Virieu has proven to be an excellent steward for Hermès’ “Petit h” concept.
Petit h traces its history to Pascale Mussard, a sixth-generation member of the Hermès family who played in the company’s store when she was a child. One day, her great uncle, Robert Dumas, brought her into the workshop to see the artisans, fished a piece of leather out of the trash and asked the craftsman if he could make a wallet out of the scrap.
The artisan worked his magic on it and the end result wound up on display in the window of the store where it promptly sold.
That wallet was the catalyst for what would become Petit h, a brand created by Mussard in 2010 that uses upcycled luxury raw materials from the manufacturing of other Hermès products.
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Upon Mussard’s retirement, she turned the reins of Petit h over to de Virieu. As creative director of the subbrand, he oversees a dedicated team of eight artisans that use the leftovers pieces to make new products.
“There is lots of material left, and this material is so precious that we ask creative people to reinvent and to tell new stories with that available material,” he said during a panel discussion Monday morning at Hermès’ Madison Avenue flagship.
The craftspeople who work on the collection use leather, silk, crystal and porcelain scraps left over from the creation of other Hermès products and are tasked with combining, assembling and adjusting them to build innovative new pieces. The motto of Petit h is “Nothing is lost, everything is transformed and an object is created.” Think salt shakers with buttons as lids; wall shelves in leather, porcelain and lacquered wood; stools in ash wool embellished with leather mushrooms, and boxes in porcelain, ash wood and leather with a hot dog or burger on top.
“We like to cross our material with new know-how,” de Virieu said, pointing to a terracotta pot with a Kelly bag handle.
The pieces, which are limited edition or one-offs, were front and center on Wednesday when Hermès took the wraps off a temporary installation dedicated to Petit h on the main floor of the store. The space was designed in collaboration with New York artist Lucia Hierro and marked the first time the collection was available in that store, which opened in the fall of 2022.
“It’s one of the most magical metiers we have,” said Diane Mahady, president of Hermès USA. So it was a “rigorous process” to find an artist with “similar values” to create the installation.
In this case, both the Petit h collection and the installation were inspired by New York City. Hierro, whose family is from the Dominican Republic, was born and raised in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, and the vignettes she created were quintessential New York.
“They’re iconic New York moments,” she said, pointing to the replicas of traffic signs, the city’s ubiquitous blue and white paper coffee cups and white “Thank You” plastic bags with red roses in the store and its windows. Even the floors were redone to simulate those in Central Park, “where we all intersect,” she said.
Some of her narratives, such as the neon shoe repair signs, evoked a feeling of nostalgia. “They’re slowly starting to disappear,” Hierro said.
It took some two years to create the products and the installation and involved several visits between New York and Paris for Hierro and the Petit h team. The artist recalled of her introduction to the craftspeople: “As soon as I walked in, I wanted to play with everything,” she said. “And I quickly learned that you could touch things and look around. I just love the whole team that I met there. They’re such cool people and just really fun.”
De Vinieu felt the same way about his visits to famous New York City locations such as the Union Square farmers market and the streets of Brooklyn. He sought to bring that same energy inside the store, and thanks to Hierro, who managed to translate the “childlike wonderment” she was asked to replicate with her pieces, that goal was achieved.
Petit h has a permanent home in Hermès’ Paris store on Rue de Sevres and every year, it travels to a different city where it partners with local artists to create installations that speak to the traditions of each country. The New York installation will remain through Oct. 26.
