Precise allure, certain elegance, discreet and yet obvious, Cécile Pesce immediately details what, in her eyes, sums up her work by quoting a sentence taken from the book The Art of Joy, by the Italian Goliarda Sapienza:
"
The colors come from the heart.”
Creative director of women's silk at Hermès, she is the one who sets the tone for the squares, colors them, fills them with blue, empties them with green, adds a touch of black... This is a precious profession where, every morning , we come to the office, to Pantin, to think of only one thing: the beauty of a piece of silk 90 cm square.
"I'm lucky," she concedes with a frank and quick smile.
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A breath of fresh air
Luck can fall by chance, but it's rare… and that's not the case for Cécile Pesce.
It is little by little that she has made her scales, like a musician who emancipates himself from music theory, since his entry into the luxury house of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris, eighteen years ago.
Was it a dream, an evidence, a career plan?
None of that.
“At the beginning of 2000, I was an independent designer when I met Bali Barret who asked me: 'Wouldn't you like to come to Hermès?' Destiny is on the move.
Caught off guard, intrigued, Cécile mimics her (brief) circumspection at the time, before acceptance.
The adventure therefore begins with the woman whose name has been permanently imprinted in the history of Hermès.
Bali and I came from this creative bubbling
Cecile Pesce
Bali Barret was chosen in 2003 by Pierre-Alexis Dumas (then artistic director of silk) in order to breathe a breath of fresh air into the square, to anchor it in the era, to energize the offer, to broaden its public, to go beyond its bourgeois patina… With Cécile Pesce in her wake, the designer succeeded in her mission beyond expectations.
A whiff of nostalgia blows through the room where the interview is taking place, the showroom on rue d'Anjou, when the past looms up for a few moments: “I met Bali when I was on maternity leave;
today, my first daughter is going to be 29… At the time, we worked for a style office, which I left after ten years,” recalls Cécile, a pure Parisian, before discussing fashion shows. the Cour Carrée du Louvre in the 1980s.
She devoted a cult to the brilliant Japanese of Comme des Garçons, to Jean Paul Gaultier… The frenzy, the audacity, the independence, an era light years away from ours.
Cécile Pesce agrees: “Bali and I came from this creative bubbling.”
70 cm “Rendez-Vous Galant” scarf in vintage silk twill.
@Flower Studio
silk dreams
"For our first collection, which was called Soie belle, we had five designs and three shades to invent."
The requirement per square meter, already.
Then increasingly sophisticated experiments, encouraged by constantly rising sales.
And above all, the desire to heckle an already wonderful heritage: perforated silk, overdyed, colored cashmere, use of the bandana, lurex supports,
wash finish,
twisted twilly… Without ever distorting the beautiful cult object.
This is the crest line, the blue note of any designer working for the family business: to blossom, to handle one's obsessions, but keeping in mind the identity, the frame of the house, the dream.
"Classicism, which is not academicism, never prevents fantasy", sums up Cécile Pesce.
And it's been that way since the beginning, when, in 1937, the ingenious Robert Dumas had the idea of a printed scarf fashioned from the silk of jockeys' outfits, twill.
Designed on the ground, the drawing already had to fit within a limited number of centimeters and be able to turn.
Often love, travel, beautiful mechanics, cultures and traditions, or even the equestrian arts have irrigated the saloon, the
one of the most famous motifs remains the ancient and iconic Brides de gala, by Hugo Grygkar, created in the 1950s.
20-25 year olds still love this square, one of our bestsellers.
So it keeps coming back, according to our desires”, specifies Cécile Pesce who, later, will show us a reinterpretation in perforated white cotton-silk of these iconic straps.
Hermès squares now come in several sizes, which further increases the ways in which you can wear them.
Oliver Hadlee Pearch
Bali Barret having left her position in 2020, it is Cécile Pesce who has since assumed responsibility for the women's silk department, while overseeing the beach collection, among other things.
Without shuddering, without a net, it is up to him to “release” eight new 90 cm squares each season, not forgetting the double-sided ones and those, smaller, 70 cm, each available in five to eight shades.
She takes up the challenge.
So that we can grasp the subtlety of this craft, she deploys her fetish of the moment, an extraordinary Kachinas model, created by the African-American painter Kermit Oliver in 1992 and reissued many times.
There are Indian ritual dolls surrounded by a powerful green.
"It's the unique beauty of Hermès scarves and the alchemy of colors: if I put on navy blue instead, everything changes,
How to wear your scarf?
No need to spend hours on this dissertation-like question.
Once the beautiful object has been chosen, for reasons specific to each person – invigorating colours, a particular motif – it is a question of extracting it from its orange box.
Then arise instinctive acts.
We grab it, look at it, crumple it, tie it – first reflex – around the neck.
Classic use.
The design, hidden, appears in touches, the scent of the morning is diffused, here it is which completes the outfit.
But, and perhaps thanks to the set of cards to tie that accompanies the box, a kind of instructions, you can improvise without limits.
There are no right or wrong ways to wear the square: tied around the hair, in a rolled up bandana, as a belt, as a scarf placed on the clothes... The piece of silk can even be improvised as a mask,
Draw me a square
Is color the only concern that is worth considering our furious era, where identity disputes are unleashed, the recurring debate of cultural reappropriation?
"We are attached to the freedom of creation while remaining in an inclusive approach", underlines Cécile Pesce.
And the choice of the artist, how to explain it?
"An encounter.
A crossroads of universes.
The young director, graphic designer and cartoonist Ugo Bienvenu thus designed the On the beach square, in shimmering and lively colors, where vermilion rubs shoulders with lemon yellow, two shades prized by Cécile.
“I don't color this square like a heritage drawing.
I try to imagine, to understand, without consulting its designer.
It is out of the question for Hermès to canvass world stars of the
contemporary art, stars tracing their logos onto a square.
"We are not publishers," she smiles.
And to unfold a new 140 cm work by the Brazilian Filipe Jardim, before quoting Elias Kafouros, Greek virtuoso, author of a superb variation of sketches of horse heads.
“My favorite meetings are those with the designers.
We evolve together in exciting creative conversations.”
Square 70 cm “Jungle Love” with Tampon in vintage silk twill.
@Flower Studio
When she sees a person in the street wearing a square, her first instinct is playful: try to guess the design.
Moreover, far from her universe of colors, the creative director appreciates the silence, the walk that unlocks her thoughts.
Each year, a theme – defined two years before by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, today artistic director of the house – irrigates collections and creations, from factories to boutiques.
In 2022, it was “lightness”.
Ideal theme for the square and its few grams of delicate dream.
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More instinctive than color theorist, the passionate Cécile Pesce knows that her brain stores layers of influences, of things seen long before the inspiration is born.
However, the memory of his childhood summer vacation in Concarneau never brought about an unexpected juxtaposition, a sudden eureka – life is not a script.
But, recently, she analyzed her Wednesday afternoons as a child, which she spent with her sister in a workshop with a huge glass roof.
His mother's drawing teacher, herself a draftsman and architect, gave lessons there.
"It's the place where I learned everything about freedom, colors, perceptions, shapes, joy."
A bubble to get out of the world.
Since the end of the pandemic,
the Hermès teams have noticed an increased passion for this dear square, which embodies, perhaps, the chic and emotional comforter of these troubled times.
Better than a fabric, an attribute of the personality.