Hermès scarf installation by Tokujin Yoshioka

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said that “a designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” A quick stroll down Fifth Avenue during the holiday season, though, assures me that very few stores share his notion. Almost every window seems smothered with furniture, drapery, glitter, and some variation of fake snow. Although I enjoy the holiday spirit as much as the next person, the designer in me remains a minimalist at heart.

Having studied under Issey Miyake and Shiro Kuramata, Tokujin Yoshioka certainly shares my appreciation for clean lines and confident designs. His recent installation for Maison Hermès Japon is, without the help of props or elaborate story lines, absolutely stunning. In it, each window displays an Hermès scarf suspended in front of an image of a Japanese actress’s face. The illusion that she is blowing into the scarf is created by air that exits from a small hole near the mouth in the image. Yoshioka explains, “I intended to express people’s daily ‘movements’ with a suspicion of humor. There are moments when I perceive a hidden presence of a person in the movements born naturally in daily life. I created a design where one can perceive someone behind the scarves as if life were being breathed into them. The window is designed with an image of a woman projected onto a monitor. The scarf softly sways in the air in response to the woman’s blow.” The result is gently mesmerizing.

The installation will be on display in Japan through January 19, 2010. A video of the piece can be found here.

Maison Hermès Japon storefront installation by Tokujin Yoshioka