Meet: Leila Menchari, Hermes window designer

There are many wonderful stories how Tunisian-born Leila Menchari got her start designing windows for Hermes.

Do look at her Youtube videos. A storyteller/creator since 1961 designing windows for 50 years.

Her thoughts are electric, inspiring.

We've been lucky to have this homage to Menchari on for a month at Grand Palais.

Always a sense of mystery to her window designs.

Luxurious fabrics and textures weave a surreal, ephemeral atmosphere.

Diaphanous and poetic veils of color. You are drawn into a magical fairytale.

Fantastical animals show up in her windows.

Especially Hermes' iconic equestrian horse in a violet geod.

Her harmonic colors caught my eye. I tried to capture her palette in watercolors washes.

Warm deep rusts and oranges with touches of cool turquoise and blues, sea foam greens. Mencharie says,"Things exist only through their color." She was director of the brands' color committee. For her, color is life and movement. The one great objective of a window is to suggest color harmony, to avoid dissonance (taken from the exhibit cataloge, The Queen of Enchantment).

I wish her preparatory sketches were part of the show.

And the models she prepared. There is a lengthy slide show of over 100 Hermes' window displays.

The cataloge is available now in Hermes' stores. The stories behind 137 windows.

Mencharie cultivated many artists to create for her windows. Christian Renonciat sketched and sculpted the 'going light-footed'

Outside in the Paris chill, many waited to get in with frozen feet. Mine too.

Afterwards I went to rue de Sevres Hermes to see if their current window displays could possibly compete with Menchari's brilliance. In fact they did very well. The theme is color. Belgian paper artist Isabelle de Borgrave has created a beautiful and lively tropical display accenting reds and greens of Noël.

Hermes colorful perfume flacon always captivate me.

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