Hermès artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas sees no conflict between tech and the arts

There’s a startling incongruity in seeing an impeccably dressed, soft-spoken man in a makeshift tent speaking on topics ranging from art to anthropology, as wild cats roar in the background. Pierre-Alexis Dumas wasn’t discomfited in the least.

This is a man who already has a creative vision for 2019, whose Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès started recognising contemporary Korean artists in 2000, before most of us knew anything about the scene. This is a man who sees no conflict between technology and craftsmanship, who is refreshingly sanguine about an evolving world. This is a man who seems, always, to be perfectly in his element.

The business world may know Dumas as one of the game-changers at Hermès. He became the brand’s artistic director in 2011, and the company experienced its biggest sales growth in decades under his direction.

Billions of euros aside, Dumas is also the founder of the brand’s Fondation d’Entreprise, which celebrates artisanal know-how and creativity, and he is integrally involved with the brand’s identity and evolving artistic expression.

The Fondation, for example, created the Missulsang prize in 2000 to highlight the increasingly vibrant contemporary art scene in South Korea. The winner last year, Jeong Geum-hyung, is testament to the brand’s willingness to push the boundaries beyond the more conventional art commonly associated with luxury brands. Jeong’s exhibit, titled “Private Collection”, included 250 objects that range from sex toys to head models to drones.

“I work with artists all around the world – whether it’s to invite them to decorate our store windows, or design a pattern for a scarf, as we did with Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Artists bring us back to our humanity, they make the unseen seen. It’s a great talent,” Dumas says.