WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Diana Moldovan captured posing among the leaves in Bali for the Hermés Ad Campaign shot by Hans Silvester • Spring / Summer 2014 Collection • Christophe Lemaire for Hermés • Image courtesy of the March 2014 issue of Vogue via The Vogue Archive

How the visionary designer Christophe Lemaire found inspiration in French painter Henri Rousseau’s glorious “Jungles in Paris” for his Hermès Spring 2014 Collection… The various shades of green, marigold and lilac featured in Rousseau’s flora and fauna found their way onto various patterned textiles, the most exceptional boots, and even onto the runway, which was set amongst a scene of lush plants curling around an off-beaten path, evoking an adventure in the hauntingly beautiful wilds of the jungle… Perhaps in the end, these printed pieces were meant to be a sort of camouflage for all the dreamers, so as not to be disturbed while enjoying the romance of a quiet walk in the garden. • All runway images courtesy of Vogue & Livingly

*Le Lion, Ayant Faim, Se Jette Sur L’Antilope* (The Hungry Lion Attacking An Antelope) • Circa 1898 - 1905 • Henri Rousseau • Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel

“Lemaire's big influence was Henri Rousseau, the Frenchman who painted jungles without ever having seen them. The pendulous flora of Rousseau's work were duplicated in the print that opened the show, with boots to match. The artist's dark jungle green colored tops, shifts, crocodile culottes, and a wrapped leather coat. It was, in fact, color that marched this collection on: mulberry, teal, sky blue, sunset orange—intense shades that were new to Lemaire's formerly neutral world. He applied them to long fluid shapes, ideal for a woman who values anonymity above all else.” • Tim Blanks for Vogue

“Rousseau was best known for his bold pictures of the jungle, teeming with flora and fauna. Yet this painter of exotic locales never left France, notwithstanding stories to the contrary. His paintings were instead the concoctions of a city dweller, shaped by visits to the botanical gardens, the zoo, and colonial expositions as well as images of distant lands seen in books and magazines. A counterpoint to his pictures of a tranquil and familiar Paris, these images of seductive and terrifying faraway places reflected the desires and fears of a new modern world… It was with these later tropical jungle pictures, painted from 1904 until his death in 1910, that Rousseau finally secured a measure of critical recognition.” • The National Gallery of Art

FANCY PANTS

THE MASTERPIECE