Cover Hermès’ home collections peeking out from the suspended volumes at La Pelota, with the Doublé d’Hermès vase in mouth-blown transparent glass and a calfskin cuff in the foreground (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
Hermès’ home collections peeking out from the suspended volumes at La Pelota, with the Doublé d’Hermès vase in mouth-blown transparent glass and a calfskin cuff in the foreground (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
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Joséphine Ciaudo talks about glass, tactility, and the quiet charisma of form for Hermès home objects
In the rarified world of Hermès, the category of home objects carries a quiet air of mystery. It excludes furniture, tableware, textiles, and even the children’s collection—so what, exactly, qualifies as a “home object” in the Hermès universe? And what was it about this elusive category that warranted its own creative director?
Joséphine Ciaudo, who stepped into this role in 2018, frames it this way: “The Home Objects category includes everything that accompanies moments of daily life—objects that aren’t necessarily defined by function, but rather by how they live with us.” These moments exclude mealtimes, which already have their own dedicated tableware universe.
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Above Divisional creative director Joséphine Ciaudo (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
Divisional creative director Joséphine Ciaudo (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
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A graduate of the École des arts appliqués Duperré in Paris with a background in textile, product, and graphic design, Ciaudo sees the category less as a checklist of typologies than as an ever-evolving terrain.
When asked whether she has the freedom to introduce new kinds of items, she explains: “It often begins with the material or a particular craftsmanship we want to explore. We start from the idea that, as long as it belongs to the universe of the home and it’s an object we can create, it belongs in the collection. We might begin with a desired function, but just as often it’s a material we want to understand, or a know-how we want to showcase.”
Above The installation at La Pelota received visitors in a monumental-scale (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
Above Hermès’ Milan Design Week presentation in April, aptly titled What Makes the Object (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
The installation at La Pelota received visitors in a monumental-scale (Photo: Courtesy of Hermès)
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Hermès’ Milan Design Week presentation in April, aptly titled What Makes the Object, explored the idea of the object as a latent form—present but not fully revealed, perceptible through transparency, weight, and shifts in light.
Conceptualised by artistic directors Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry, the installation at La Pelota received visitors in a monumental-scale, all-white exhibition space. The brand’s 2025 collection for home was displayed inside suspended monolithic volumes, their various shapes and openings made distinct from the background only by the soft glow of expertly deployed coloured LED strips—a clever visual articulation of the aura of an object, if you will.
Above Ciaudo shares how glass forces them to consider not just the object, but also its context and content (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
Above Ciaudo is particularly taken with how the jugs and the colours interact with the angles of view and their content (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
Ciaudo shares how glass forces them to consider not just the object, but also its context and content (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
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Above “Glass allowed us to approach colour in three dimensions,” Ciaudo explains (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
Above Jugs Doublé d’Hermès, a double-walled carafe that reveals additional colours when filled (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
“Glass allowed us to approach colour in three dimensions,” Ciaudo explains (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
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Artfully arranged inside the openings of these suspended shapes were the Home Objects. These include the Jugs Doublé d’Hermès, a double-walled carafe that reveals additional colours when filled; the Box Doublé d’Hermès, a sycamore trinket box topped with a fused-glass Hermès H; and the Vase Doublé d’Hermès, a seven-layered glass vase wrapped in a tricolour leather band. Glass emerged as the material of choice this season.
“Glass allowed us to approach colour in three dimensions,” Ciaudo explains, admitting that she is particularly taken with how the jugs and the colours interact with the angles of view and their content. “Unlike opaque materials like leather, glass is transparent and translucent. It forces us to consider not just the object, but also its context and content.”
Above Glass emerged as the material of choice this season (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
Above Many Hermès objects speak in whispers rather than declarations (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
Glass emerged as the material of choice this season (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
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Her reflections on process echoed many of the collection’s defining traits: layering, tactility, restraint. “You can control tension with wood or metal,” she adds. “With glass, you surrender to its flow. Sometimes, the material chooses its own shape.” Whether it’s the grain of a wooden base or the density of leather, Ciaudo responds to the qualities of each material as a collaborator—allowing the object to evolve from its natural logic.
That same balance between control and spontaneity runs through the emotional terrain Ciaudo often navigates in her work. Many Hermès objects speak in whispers rather than declarations—and she believes their quiet power lies in the interplay between material, memory and meaning.
Above The Jugs Doublé d’Hermès, which reveal a rich play of colours when interacting with their contents (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
The Jugs Doublé d’Hermès, which reveal a rich play of colours when interacting with their contents (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
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Above A trio of Casaque glasses, cased with coloured glass and finished with colour-to-clear cutting (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
A trio of Casaque glasses, cased with coloured glass and finished with colour-to-clear cutting (Photo: Maxime Tetard)
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“Emotion, whether nostalgia or wonder, is part of how an object lives with us,” she shares. One such example is a large bowl with a solid wood base that she acquired from Hermès some 20 years ago. “It’s the first thing I see when I return home,” she says. “It has presence, but it’s not imposing. That’s the kind of charisma we strive for: quiet, enduring, harmonious.”
In Ciaudo’s hands, these home objects do not demand attention. They offer it—through presence, resonance, and a certain charisma that, as she says with a smile, makes them “always there, always waiting.”
French to English interpreter: Roberta Giovine
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Jakarta-born, Bandung-raised and Singapore-based, Asih Jenie trained in Visual Communication Design at Bandung Institute of Technology and Architecture at Parahyangan Catholic University. She brings both rigour and heart to design journalism, infused with a distinct Southeast Asian voice.
As a child, she doodled on the edges of her schoolbooks and never outgrew her fascination with all things well-made and well-told. Her 15-year career spans editorial roles and bylines in Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Australia, across spatial design titles such as Dwell Asia, Cubes, Design Anthology, Habitus Living, and Home & Decor.
After a brief stint in public relations, she returned to publishing in 2023 to lead Tatler Homes Singapore, where she continues to tell stories about how we shape the spaces that shape us.
