This past Tuesday, at their Madison Avenue flagship store, Hermès launched their next foray into the domestic sphere with a line of textiles. Specifically, furnishing fabrics and wallpapers in prints ranging from the straight-forward Tresses to the Clic Clac Quadrillé, a bi-color pattern inspired by an Hermès scarf design from 1979. Composed of cottons, wools, and silk failles, each piece projects an air of playful radiance. Ponies, braided ropes, and playroom toys float in abstraction against iterations and inversions of the classic “Hermès” logo. The launch party itself was a cheeky, color-splashed experience that invited guests to “express themselves” on white canvas installations throughout the three-story boutique with oversized wooden stamps and paint rollers. A team of artisans in white jumpsuits served as catalyst, and also as the canvases, for the evening’s mandate. Determined to touch all aspects of life, Hermès has long provided luxury products that we need, and ever increasingly, that we decidedly don’t need. But when has any luxury brand been slowed by such constraints?