In May, Hermès presented new window displays for the store at Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan. The design of the sculptures for the boutique was created based on drawings and in collaboration with Ukrainian artist Volodymyr Waone Manzhos. DTF Magazine asked Waone for more details about the work on the project
About the offer of cooperation
Volodymyr said that before talking about designing window displays for Hermès, he ‘should first mention the window displays for Kyiv’s TSUM’, which he designed in 2021.
‘This project gave me the experience I needed and set a precedent. In November 2022, I was creating a mural in Paris and a representative from Hermès headquarters came there to meet me. It sounds like a coincidence, but it wasn’t. The desire of the Chef de projet Vitrines (window display project manager) to meet me was really the work of a representative of the New York gallery I was working with, — Waone recalls. — I showed him the work for TSUM, and within a week Hermès offered me a collaboration’.
Volodymyr added: ‘As it turned out later, the artistic director and vice-president of Hermès, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, is, in his words, a fan of my work. Last year, he came to my Visionary Tales exhibition in Paris at the Item gallery’.
About sculptures for window displays
According to Manzhos, he suggested that the brand make a selection of characters close to the brand’s philosophy from his already realized works. Hermès chose 15-20 images ‘from his surreal world’.
He added that initially the brand wanted to reproduce in the concept the expression ‘Astonishment is the spark needed to set alight creation’ and ‘vibe of the Far East’, but the latter was abandoned closer to the final work with sketches of future sculptures.
‘They decided to focus completely on my universe. I came up with a concept about the aspects of Duality — Day and Night. There are two windows in the store that are in opposite directions — South and North [the first is dedicated to the Day and Light and the second is for the Night]. The Hermès team liked the idea and we started to develop it’.
About the work process
The work on the sculptures lasted 14 months and was done remotely. Waone said that the process was conducted ‘between New York, Paris, Kyiv, Hong Kong and Osaka’.
At the first stage, they defined the concept and the main idea, and then they worked on refining the ideas into finished concrete sketches of characters and compositions. After the sketches created by Volodymyr were approved, the artist created digital mock-ups based on them for further production of the sculptures.
The work was produced by a Japanese studio, which, according to Manzhos, conferred with him during the process regarding the final result.
The sculptures will stand in the boutique for a year as part of the Hermès Art Windows project.
Volodymyr Waone Manzhos is a Ukrainian artist and muralist. He created his first work at a graffiti festival in Odesa in 2000, and later joined Oleksii Aec Bordusov to form the creative duo Interesni Kazky. Their collaborative work came to an end in 2016 — since then Manzhos has been working alone.
Waone murals are distinguished by bright colors, soft plasticity of forms and fantasy plots. His designs can be seen in the USA, India, France, Spain, Denmark, Morocco and other countries.
Two of Volodymyr’s most expensive works were bought at an exhibition in New York in 2016: Spark of Life cost $30,000 and Trick cost $20,000. In addition to working on murals and paintings, Waone also does sculpture.
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