Designer Pierre Hardy sees his work more as art

Pierre Hardy rushes into the Hermès headquarters with a stream of sheepish apologies and air kisses. Given his warm and unassuming manner, it can be easy to forget that behind the signature black glasses is a mind as astute as it is creative, as meticulous as it is philosophical. The designer is a tad late, unsurprising given Paris’ rush-hour traffic and the fact that Hardy is a busy, busy man.

The prolific designer launched his eponymous brand in 1999, producing the stunning shoes for which he’s known, reaching out often to collaborate with names that range from luxury motor companies such as Peugeot to cosmetic brands such as NARS.

He became the creative director for Hermès’ men’s and women’s shoe collections in 1990, then creative director for its fine jewellery division in 2001. The past three decades have been a whirlwind of bags, jewellery, perfume and nail polish bottles, and, of course, shoes – and that’s exactly how the designer likes it.

“I would be so bored doing only one kind of product,” he says. “What makes things exciting for me is to change focus.” The fact that Hardy likes variety is evident even in the way he speaks. He picks ideas and thoughts out of the air from a colourful mind map only he can see, enthusing about shoe design before switching gears to form and function, then veering off on a tangent to archaeology and his other sources of inspiration before pausing to wonder, “What was the question again?”

The question, incidentally, was whether modernity, with all the transparency, immediacy and accessibility that technology brings, has changed the way he works over the years.

“We are informed by so much media around us. It’s non-stop, and it can be a bit too much sometimes, but that’s the way it is and we have to deal with it,” he says. “What it does change significantly is the way we consider things, the way we look at images and think: what is the original, what was that moment in time during which this precise object first appeared, and what are the [interpretations] that come after?”

He brings up the recent sneaker craze as an example. Over the past two years, it seems every designer shoe brand under the sun has come up with some sort of a novelty sneaker. Brands such as Lanvin, Giuseppe Zanotti and even Maison Margiela have come up with their version of a sports shoe, as has Hermès.