Paper Planes

High fashion and lighthearted fun—c’est impossible, non? Not on the glossy pages of Le Monde d’Hermès, a biannual magazine published by the Parisian fashion house. Take the most recent cover, which gathers together a cacophony of objects—cloth-cutting scissors, silk scarves, a solitary bicycle wheel—on a dream catcher–like structure that hangs suspended.

This gentle sense of playfulness filters through the inner pages of the magazine too, from the fashion photography to the abrupt discovery, halfway through, that the page orientation flips upside down. With a current circulation of 600, 000 copies per issue and translations into 13 languages, the magazine has become a collector’s item. It offers another portal into Hermès’ cultured sphere, a space in which readers can dis-appear into the wild landscapes and outlandish illustrations that crawl across the