Hermès Life in Mars

A man with a horse’s head. A French frite shop on top of a volcano. A space rover with a luxury handbag.

It might sound a tad mad but these are the surreal scenes shoppers on the streets of Paris are confronted with.

Far from apocalyptic, these dystopian scenes are the new window displays for 20 Hermès stores in the country.

Dreamt up by designer Job Smeet, who was inspired by David Bowie’s song of the same name, the Life on Mars installations depicts the fictional colonisation of Mars by an odd set of characters.

“Hermès interprets my ideas in its incredible way from my drawings of this surreal utopia, or maybe you could call it a dystopia,” Smeets said. “It’s a textile outcome created with fabrics, leathers, sand, intricate stitching that only Hermès can produce.”

“I believe the theme is about climate change, as well as utopian escapism and also about the current conversation of us leaving this planet to colonise Mars.”

“Especially in the world we live in, it would be ignorant to create a perfect summer scene,” Smeets added of the displays which also comment on the climate crises.

“Something throughout all my work is a serious subject tied up often in humour.”

All in all, eleven surreal installations will be displayed across the brand’s stores in France this summer season, each object handmade by Hermès using leather, wool and fabric.

The displays also include pieces that reference some of the artist’s previous works, including a bubbling volcano structure.

Of the collaborative effort, the artist said: “They were open to using anything in the windows with very few rules. They had some great ideas. For example, based on my sketch, they proposed waved belts could work for the flying cake, topped with Hermès lipsticks as the candles.”

“We played with packaging and typical Hermès artefacts and icons that were used, such as their pet accessories on our Mars dogs and the large horse collars inspired by the Hermès’s family collection and heritage.”

Out of this world, indeed.