At Milan Design Week 2025, Hermès returned to the iconic La Pelota venue in Milan to present a home collection that transcended the boundaries of design. Under the scenography of the French maison's artistic directors, Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry, the project revealed a multisensory installation that transformed objects into luminous emotions. In contrast to the brand’s typically layered presentations from the fair over recent years, ranging from a material-explorative tapestry of products evoking the adage ‘something old, something new, something borrowed’ (The Topography of Material, 2024), and a series of colourful pavilions akin to water towers seeking lightness in design (Looking for Lightness, 2022), this year Hermès surprised visitors with a stark, all-white scheme. With an overarchingly dramatic play of matter and minimalism, the French fashion brand posed a key question: What makes an object?

Hermès answers its very question. “To design an object, to make it, a box is needed. Like a sculptor’s marble block, it contains the object, the idea we have of it and the dream it inspires. But to reach the object, the box does not need to be opened, at least not fully. The attentive eye will notice openings, holes or windows cut into it, the shell becoming lighter here and there until it is transparent, revealing the fluidity of glass, of a colour.” This philosophy manifested clearly in the design installation itself. The whole physical space became a huge white box that you can step into. Nearly colourless suspended boxes floated in space, each casting vivid halos of light onto the floor. Here, architecture’s favourite heroes—solids and voids—come into play. The solid provides a platform to display the ‘objects’; the voids become the holes that sometimes steal a glance or windows to view the collection. However, the true visual treat is how the objects don’t immediately present themselves. Instead, they emerge gradually—first as shadows, then as reflections, and finally in full form.

While Hermès successfully cast these objects as dreams and emotions, many visitors couldn’t help but also wonder about the price tags—proof, perhaps, of how effectively the brand turns desire into design. That’s the beauty of Hermès at the design week: it curated a collection of product designs: vases, tables, crockery and blankets that feel like essential objects—things you want, maybe even need. Of course, how many of us can afford them is another matter—but perhaps that’s part of the dream Hermès invites us into.

However, this year’s installation in Italy was not particularly about the scenography but two other things: the story and the object. The story relates to the emotion a space made by Hermés makes you feel and the object will make you feel that same way even when you step out. The collection was a masterclass in material exploration, luxury design and refined craftsmanship. Glass took centre stage, with the Casaque series showcasing mouth-blown, coloured vessels cold-cut to reveal stripes and chequered patterns. From every angle, light danced across their surfaces, revealing new depths and shifting tones. The Doublé d’Hermès vases and jugs pushed this artistry further, layering up to seven sheets of glass to create rich, nuanced gradients. Here, leather met glass boldly and expressively, speaking for the brand's philosophies on luxury and craftsmanship.

On the textile front, Hermès continued its pursuit with cashmere. The Points et Plans throw by artist Amer Musa recalled a childhood game, a grid of multicoloured appliqué dots stitched into handwoven cashmere. The H Partition throw, adorned with delicately applied 24-carat gold powder, shimmered like a musical score, faintly reminiscent of gold kasavu, the traditional South Indian fabric.

Furniture design also found poetic footing in the Pivot d’Hermès side table, a vibrant composition by Spanish designer Tomás Alonso. With a lacquered glass base and a cedar wood box rotating on an eccentric axis, the piece was a study in controlled imbalance—a nod to the delicate act of creative tightrope walking.

Well, Hermés at Milan Design Week 2025 was an artistically curated display of their homeware offerings, minimal, simple and clean. It didn’t quite look typical Hermès, but it was where the house chose to tell the story that 'an object can be an emotion'.

Keep up with STIR's coverage of Milan Design Week 2025, where we spotlight the most compelling exhibitions, presentations and installations from top studios, designers and brands. Dive into the highlights of Euroluce 2025 and explore all the design districts—Fuorisalone, 5Vie, Brera, Isola, Durini and beyond—alongside the faceted programme of Salone del Mobile.Milano this year.