Françoise Pétrovitch, a major artist on the French contemporary scene, has created a paper model theater in movement for the window displays of the Hermès store in Ginza, Tokyo. It features a trotting horse in reference to the Hermès flagship store at 24 Rue de Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in Paris and in honor of the luxury saddlery house. Playing on superimposition and transparency, the horse is juxtaposed with other recurring figures present in the artist’s oeuvre such as birds, gloves and boots, echoing the leather goods produced by Hermès. The viewer will see objects, accessories and garments coming together and interacting with the drawings in a surrealist fantasy theater.

The stores’ sixteen showcase windows will feature drawings by the artist that act like keyholes drawn in negative. Each of the mini-showcases depicts a different universe in which we can observe an elephant, an improbable see-saw, an over-sized rider, a precariously balanced girl and a unicorn… These figures play on another form of transparency, that of the swirls of paint on the glass, fitting in perfectly with the architecture of Renzo Piano.