Tracing the Sea: An Oceanic Journey for Hermès

A few months ago, Hermès invited us to create a project for their store on Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona. Inspired by the depths of the Mediterranean Sea and the maison’s 2025 annual theme, Driven by Drawing, we began to imagine a universe where we could share our devotion to craftsmanship and savoir-faire: the time invested, the precision, and the memory of materials.

Through a story whose premise was to journey across the ocean, we sought to transform living materials —fiber, wood, pigments, silk— into new forms that preserve their essence, guided by a shared pursuit of poetic elegance that unites tradition and modernity, always open to experimentation.

Posidonia, The Mediterranean Architect

Posidonia, our starting point. It is the essence and foundation of the entire marine ecosystem: it creates habitats, produces oxygen, and shelters hundreds of species of plants and animals. Our intervention proposes a sensory current where posidonia and Mediterranean fauna engage in dialogue with the Hermès collection, revealing hidden treasures that appear and disappear among seagrass, squids, and moray eels.

Unique and symbolic objects enrich the narrative of the display: a horse reminiscent of Poseidon’s steeds; a beauty chest beside the nacre as a nod to the birth of Venus; silks entwined with the squid creating marine illusions; or wings printed with celestial charts, transforming flying fish into talismans—a perfume of the Mediterranean.

The name Posidonia evokes Poseidon. This is Neptune’s forest, calling forth a parade of memorable sentinels.

Tracing the Sea — An installation by Sagarminaga Atelier

“I would like visitors to feel a strange, almost unconscious magnetism that compels them to pause. To sense the immensity and grandeur of the sea translated into the display, and at the same time the mystery of something that hides and slowly reveals itself, like a submerged secret.”

Gabriela Sagarminaga

The Celebration

Months of work culminated in a presentation for the guests and the Hermès family, with whom we were able to share for the first time the sensations of journeying through this imaginary ocean.

A journey that began at the entrance of Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona, where passersby paused to admire the swordfish in motion; it continued through the different rooms of the store, revealing pieces that emerged among lights and reflections, until reaching the courtyard, where —beside the squid— we celebrated, under one of the last summer nights, the beauty of the ephemeral and the permanence of the artisanal gesture.

That night, the Mediterranean became drawing, matter, and story: a space where nature and creation meet, reminding us that every form is born from movement and from the attentive gaze of the one who observes it.