Hermès à tire-d’aile – Les mondes de Leïla Menchari
If there ever were to be a contest for the most creative and inspiring displays, Parisian displays would be the top winners every single time. The savoir-faire of these designers is exceptional and unique au monde and this fall it’s a great time to celebrate an amazing woman who excelled in this industry.
The French leather goods house, Hermès, will hold this month, an exhibition in honour to Leïla Menchari, highlighting her poetique yet flamboyant work as a window designer: Hermès à tire-d’aile – Les mondes de Leïla Menchari (The Hermès Worlds of Leïla Menchari)
Window display by Leïla Menchari, Summer 2008 Hermès 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris
After graduating from L’école de Beaux-Arts in Tunis, Menchari moved to Paris to pursue her studies in peinture at the l’école Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Here she met fellow Tunisian Azzedine Alaia, who introduced her to the world of fashion.
She started working as assistant and head illustrator at Hermès under Annie Beaumel (the fashion house’s former head of windows) in the early Sixties until 1977, when she was appointed as head stylist at the prestigious French leather goods maison by Jean Louis Dumas.
Menchari designed Hermès’ windows from 1978 to 2013: imagining, designing, and decorating magical vitrines. Her window designs always included exotic materials, the energy of colours and the poetry of her travels.
The exhibition will include a series 8 tableaux imaginé by scenographer Nathalie Crinière in collaboration with Menchari on display at the Grand Palais. An accompanying 432-page book, Leïla Menchari, la Reine Mage (Leïla Menchari, the Magician) will be released in November.
Summer 2004 Hermès 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris
Summer 1996
Winter 1997
Summer 2000
Winter 1999
Grand Palais
Hermès à tire-d’aile – Les mondes de Leïla Menchari,
Grand Palais, Paris
From 8 November to 3 December 2017
Galerie Sud, free entry
