Julien Martinez Leclerc.
The horse has always been Hermès’ most faithful companion. Long before the Birkin and Kelly, it defined the house’s identity, leaving its imprint across everything from saddlery to silk scarves. This season, however, it barely appears at all. For its ninth haute joaillerie collection, ‘Into the Horsescape,’ Hermès transforms its oldest symbol into something far less literal.
Creative Director of Hermès Jewellery Pierre Hardy chose to distil centuries of equestrian heritage into fragments: the curve of a horse bit, the tension of a lasso, the geometry of a stirrup or the humble blacksmith’s nail. Familiar objects become extraordinary jewels, carrying the spirit of the animal without ever depicting it directly. “This is a metonymical collection,” Hardy explains. “The horse itself is barely seen, but its symbolism lives within each piece, sometimes even taking on a metaphorical quality.”
Julien Martinez Leclerc.
Julien Martinez Leclerc.
Across 90 one-of-a-kind creations, the collection unfolds as a series of distinct design families, each exploring a different facet of that invisible presence. In ‘Étreintes,’ elongated horse bits stretch around vivid emeralds, while ‘Lasso Disco’ recreates the coiled tension of a rope through angular baguette-cut diamonds arranged in naturally irregular formations. ‘Chevauchée’ looks towards the American Great Plains with braided and twisted chains punctuated by quartz, jade and tourmaline, as ‘Hermès Apparat’ draws on the protective horse hood through supple black and white mother-of-pearl articulations that move effortlessly with the body.
Elsewhere, colourful sugarloaf cabochons emerge from sculptural stirrups in ‘Étriers,’ while ‘Sellette’ miniaturises an 18th-century saddle stand into an intricately engineered bracelet crafted in black-coated titanium. ‘Centaure’ reduces the shape of a horse’s hoof to bold architectural geometry; ‘Attelage d’Or’ revisits harness buckles through finely set baguette diamonds, and ‘Fouet Double Tour’ reinterprets the texture of a leather whip in woven gold and diamonds. Perhaps the collection’s most striking transformation arrives in ‘Clou de Forge Lumière,’ where the blacksmith’s horseshoe nail becomes a radiant sunburst through Hermès’ signature pavage matière setting. Only in ‘Galop Hermès’ does the animal itself subtly return, traced in brown and white diamonds framed by warm rose gold.
Julien Martinez Leclerc.
Colour carries as much meaning as form. White diamonds illuminate pavé-set gold, while black jade, Tahitian pearls, brown diamonds and rose gold evoke polished hooves, worn leather and the warmth of a horse’s coat. Hardy approaches gemstones less as trophies than as pigments, selecting them for the atmosphere they create rather than their rarity alone. “What really interests me is the effect they can bring to a piece,” he says. “I use them in a rather pictorial way, like painting with colours.”
That same philosophy extends to the engineering behind every jewel. Clasps disappear, mechanisms become almost imperceptible and each piece follows the body’s natural movement with remarkable fluidity. For Hardy, jewellery only reaches its final form once it surpasses the original sketch. “I often get this feeling once the object transcends the beauty of the initial drawings,” he says. “It is up to me to determine when it is ready to be worn.”
Discover more about the ‘Into the Horsescape’ collection here.
photography. courtesy of Julien Martinez Leclerc
words. Gennaro Costanzo
