Newsfeed
In the world of Hermès, inspiration rarely arrives where you’d expect it. Sometimes it sits within the craftsmanship of the famed Kelly bag, sometimes it’s taken from the famed silk scarf, and sometimes it sits quietly in the archives.
It’s the latter for the latest beauty launch for the Maison, in an object shaped nearly a century ago, created for movement – and a groundbreaking one at that. In 1923, as the world began to travel faster via automobiles, the Maison designed ‘le sac pour l’auto’: a handbag intended for life in motion. Its defining feature was disruptive, both in design and practicality – a zip borrowed from automobile mechanics, introduced for the first time into a leather bag. Practical, of course, but also with an enduring design the bag – which would later be named the Bolide – as we know it today, would become one of Hermès’ most recognisable and historic designs.
Over a century later, that same spirit would arrive in an entirely different form – Hermès Plein Air, the Maison’s very first foundation.
“When I started working on the foundation, I visited the museum of Émile Hermès in the Faubourg boutique,” recalls Gregoris Pyrpylis, Creative Director of Hermès Beauty, to GRAZIA.
It was there, among objects that chart the Maison’s history of quiet innovation, the historic bag caught his attention. “There’s this beautiful bag called the Bolide,” he explains. “Back in the day, in 1923 when Émile Hermès created it, it was called ‘le sac pour l’auto’. It was the first time that the zip was integrated into a bag. It was created for his wife. It’s a beautiful bag that is also very practical.”
What specifically struck him was not the idea of function elevated to luxury, but the material of the accessory itself, namely the box leather, “which is extremely luxurious and radiant”, Pyrpylis explains. “It’s not glowy, it’s not shiny – but luminous.” The surface itself captures light as it moves, diffusing it softly, but never reflecting it outright.
“It feels almost like the light is captured in the material,” he describes. “It’s there, and it’s vibrant, and it’s just diffusing light all the time.” That anecdote would become the emotional starting point for Hermès Plein Air – a complexion product designed not to transform skin, but to move with it. “That’s how I thought about the foundation,” Pyrpylis adds. “That instantly it looks beautiful on the skin, but also day by day over time, the skin looks like it has this kind of light.”
The foundation sits within the Plein Air world, which was first introduced by Hermès Beauty in 2022 – a concept rooted in light, movement and natural expression. “It’s all about beauty in motion,” Pyrpylis reflects. “A beauty that’s free, vibrant, unique and reflects a beautiful, natural, luminous and radiant skin that is not overcharged and not overdone.”
Perhaps this is the same ethos reflected in all creations in the Hermès universe. The Maison has always honoured its materials. Leather, silk, lacquer and precious metals are treated not merely as components, but as living surfaces shaped by the hand of the artisan, as part of this ‘beauty in motion’ ethos.
For Pyrpylis, the same respect had to apply here when creating the first foundation for the house.
“What is the most noble material that Hermès Beauty is expressing on?” he recalls asking himself. “And I said, the skin, which is a living material.”
The foundation was conceived “just like an artisan’s gesture, as an artisan’s tool”, designed to “honour and respect it and take care of it and restore its radiance”, That philosophy is reflected in the formula itself: 82 percent skincare base, enriched with niacinamide, pure hyaluronic acid and white mulberry extract – ingredients chosen not only for immediate effect, but for improvement over time.
“It’s not just about looking amazing when you wear it and then we don’t care what happens next. Day by day, the quality of your skin gets better and better,” Pyrpylis asserts.
“It’s not just about instant high performance,” he adds. “It’s about more of a holistic approach.”
It’s that holistic approach which encompasses the ritual of Plein Air itself, designed to go beyond mere performance but reframe the act of the application itself.
“My goal was to create a ritual that has the ability to transcend the typical makeup application,” Pyrpylis says. “With the fast pace of our lives these days, makeup can be done in a rush, and then sometimes it becomes almost a burden.”
Hermès’ response was to create objects that slow the moment without complicating it. “The idea was to create a moment of self-care – to disconnect for the five, 10, 15 minutes you devote to yourself,” he says. The stainless-steel palette, inspired by an artist’s tool, reflects that thinking, which is “something you really have to experience with your own hands and eyes”, according to the Hermès Beauty Creative Director.
In fact, the whole Plein Air world embodies a ritual.
“It’s the whole collection, not just the foundation,” says Pyrpylis. “Because it comes within a ritual – the foundation, the primer and the objects that accompany this beautiful foundation. My goal was, as in every collection, to carry all those values and all these elements that really reflect the beauty of our house – the quest for excellence, for the high-quality ingredients, the noble materials, the very well-thought-out gestures behind them.”
At the heart of Plein Air is its adaptability.
“We didn’t create a foundation that is high coverage and it gives you only that,” he explains. “It’s a foundation of medium-plus coverage that is buildable.” Perhaps one day it’s sheer, another it’s more buildable coverage, but always natural. That adaptability is intentional – a complexion that moves with the wearer, rather than defining her.
“When applied, the sensation is often surprising, with most people saying, ‘Did you really add something?’ Because it feels like nothing on the skin,” he explains. But for Pyrpylis, that weightlessness is essential.
As Hermès Beauty continues to evolve, growth is not about scale, but depth. “My goal is to be even more intentional,” Pyrpylis says. “To create more edited and more concise, deliberate collections.”
For Hermès, innovation has never meant chasing what’s new but perfecting what lasts. Just like a bag designed for the automobile in 1923, or a foundation crafted for skin today, the philosophy remains unchanged: objects should move with you.
