Artist Hubert Crabières describes Melbourne as a city where architecture and joy seamlessly blend to create the vibrant metropolis we know and love. Located at the corner of Collins and Exhibition Streets, you'll find a heritage-listed building featuring a line of arched windows, traditional Grecques lights, and emblematic Faubourg mosaics — all coming together to form the Hermès Melbourne store. In its recent renovation, Crabières captures the city's essence and infuses it with the enchanting heritage flavours of Faubourg, to create the installation for the stores windows, that imbue this unique spirit.
Crabières, known for his distinct fusion of fabric and photography, transformed both Hermès' Shanghai and Melbourne store's into a mesmerising canvas that plays with this year's Hermès theme, 'The Spirit of the Faubourg'. His work captures the essence of both nostalgia and innovation, weaving personal memories with high fashion; and for Melbourne's installation, Crabières' draws on the personal experiences and visual memories of the city, infusing the Hermès space with a touch of local charm and personal nostalgia. Below, Crabières speaks in conversation with RUSSH Editor In Chief, Jess Blanch on his creative processes.
His artistic journey began in university, where he found his style and medium with photography and fabrics. "I wanted to play with staging and just record that. And because of that, I was not necessarily interested by fashion or anything. I was interested by costume, by grotesque, and people came to me like, 'Oh, do you want to try to make a tutorial?' And I felt like I talked a lot about context, because I really need context to create something. Because it makes work understandable. What is the economy behind art? How is it shown? And so fashion was a context in which I could understand the rule, sometimes agree, sometimes disagree. So I can play with this vocabulary in my work."
Crabières, who used this very style to create the Shanghai Hermès store windows with just curtains, pushed the boundaries even further in Melbourne. "In Shanghai, it was only curtains moving, so it was a bit like the opening of the show. Now, in Melbourne, we have the scenery and the next funnel. We play, but with the character, so it's trying to create a story," he explains. Immersing himself in Melbourne’s ambiance during his visit in late February, he found inspiration from the city’s bubbly energy and rich flora and fauna. That enticed him to want "to play with very simple elements of everyday life that maybe are very usual for people from Melbourne," but for Crabières, were quite new, like the magpie bird. These symbolic elements — like the bird perched on the window rails and the street from Faubourg seamlessly blending with Melbourne's trees — merge the essence of the Faubourg story with the vibrant spirit of the city.
As he tells RUSSH, his first encounter with the Hermès spirit occurred when he visited the Hermes family home in Faubourg, which he described as "perfect." After this experience, he felt he could "create a bridge between this grand house and its amazing stories" while integrating his own "little story", that allowed him to form an "honest and genuine connection" to the narrative of the House. Since he primarily shoots his personal works at home and stages them in his living room, he used this space as the backdrop for this piece, envisioning it as a window through which to draft the installation.
Crabières’ unique approach carefully and masterfully intertwines Melbourne's vibrant spirit with the timeless elegance of Hermès. The result is a narrative within the window that is both local and universal, as his artistic vision enhances the store’s atmosphere while also celebrating the playful and heartfelt essence that defines both Melbourne and 'The Spirit of the Faubourg'.
