P ierre Hardy’s two great passions – dance and drawing – led him to the world of creation, where he has designed shoe collections for such prestigious fashion houses as Christian Dior, Hermès and Balenciaga. In 1999, he founded his eponymous accessories label, through which he explores his distinctive aesthetic expression at the crossroads of architecture, movement and colour. Today, he is also the Creative Director for footwear and jewellery at Hermès.

This season, Sotheby’s invites him to turn his discerning eye to the decorative arts, entrusting him as curator of the Important Design sale in Paris. Through a selection of 20th- and 21st-century works, Pierre Hardy orchestrates an interplay of design, sculpture and fashion, revealing the subtle poetry of form following function. His vision offers a journey in which each piece embodies a tension between discipline and freedom, reflecting his own creative process.

Past Auction

Important Design

25 November 2025 | 2:30 PM CET | Paris

What was your childhood like?
I was raised by my two grandmothers, one who lived near Montmartre and the other on Boulevard Raspail. My parents worked long hours as physical education and dance teachers. I’ve always been Parisian, through and through. I had an aunt who was a painter, but no one else in my family had any real interest in art or collecting. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. I went on to earn a teaching qualification in fine arts. My only ambition in life was to paint and to draw.

How did you start working in fashion?
Like many things in life: by chance, and for the sheer pleasure of it! I had friends who worked in fashion, and I would help them with their portfolios. I entered the fashion world by illustrating for magazines. It all felt a bit like a game, and that lightness gave me a great deal of freedom. Later, I began creating collections for small brands before going on to design shoe collections at Dior.

You once said that, when you first arrived at Hermès, you presented what your dream shoe would look like if you were to design the collection. What did it look like?
I made about ten sketches that were very pared down, very simple. I wanted to translate the identity and codes of that great Maison into a shoe, which is a small object, a confined space. I used a quote by Hermes Trismegistus, the iconic saddle nail, and other elements that belong to the brand’s visual vocabulary.

You collaborated with Nicolas Ghesquière when he was Artistic Director at Balenciaga.
We didn’t realise it at the time, but ten or fifteen years later, we look back on that time as an incredible moment in fashion. We worked as intensely, efficiently, and inventively as possible. It was an extraordinary experience to collaborate with the best designer of that period, to be carried along by ideas I would never have found on my own. He sees shoes as being as important as the garments themselves, because they shape the entire silhouette.

Why did you decide to launch your own brand in 1999, while you were still working at Hermès and Balenciaga? And in what way do art, design and architecture inspire your collections?
I realised I had many ideas and desires that didn’t quite correspond with either Hermès or Balenciaga, and that it would be wonderful to create a space where I could express them. The formal vocabulary that interests me is rooted in abstraction, modernity, and minimalism: a certain radicality. What I seek in my collections is sophistication, femininity and allure. I don’t know if I’m inspired by design and architecture, but I certainly feel close to that world. Just as architecture provides boxes for living, shoes are boxes for the body. I try to capture that same simplicity and structure within the object. Le Corbusier said that a house should be a “machine for living in.” One could say that a shoe should be a “machine for walking in.”

The drawing from Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities series that hangs in your living room in New York City suggests that your passion for dance influences your choice of certain works…
I bought it ten years ago at Sotheby’s in New York. Robert Longo’s drawings are genius, breathtaking, masterful. He uses graphite to create large-scale drawings, depicting contemporary subjects using a very classical technique reminiscent of the Renaissance and the 17th century.

What were the first works you ever bought?
Very modern design pieces: chairs by Robert Wilson, a console by Shiro Kuramata, marble lamps by Tobia Scarpa. And also black-and-white photographs by Cindy Sherman: small-format prints from her Bus Riders series, where she plays the woman on the bus or the boy waiting on a chair. I bought those in New York, and I still have them at my apartment in Paris.

How would you define your taste?
My collection is still just as radical and minimalist, even in its modes of expression. First of all, I’m a terrible collector because I don’t get obsessed. My tastes are quite eclectic. What I enjoy is to strike upon a particular aesthetic through very different things. I now live in New York City, in a 1920s building that I had restored as a white box. I surround myself with figurative and abstract pieces, as well as wall-hung works. Here, I have a piece by Donald Judd that I bought many years ago. I find that his radicality perfectly encapsulates the 20th century: the search for a new aesthetic and a new sensibility. Not through embellishment of detail, but through the balance of volume and void, matter and form. To me, Ettore Sottsass is one of the masters of design. I have several of his one-offs, such as monochrome cubes in polished aluminium. This is not the playful, decorative Sottsass of Memphis. In my New York apartment, I also have a large photograph by Paul Mpagi Sepuya, a photographer who takes self-portraits in his studio and reworks them through collage and cut-outs.

Your apartment on Île Saint-Louis is decorated by the Italian architect Vincenzo De Cotiis. Tell us the story.
I married my American husband ten years ago, when he had just arrived in Paris. We wanted a home that would truly be ours. I happened to have met Vincenzo’s wife, and she told me they would be in Paris for just two days. We had just bought the apartment. They came to visit, and we immediately became friends. It is a listed 17th-century building, with ceilings painted by the Boullogne brothers. The challenge was to complement those ceilings in a contemporary way. Vincenzo had the intelligence not to impose on the space too forcefully. He worked with the existing spaces and architecture to create the podium, sofa, bed, tables and kitchen, using materials such as stone, resin and metal. I adore this interplay between rough and minimalist, radical and baroque.

What works would we discover within?
I have a large painting by an American artist, Liz Deschenes, and large-scale photographs by Robert Longo. They are preparatory portraits of Cindy Sherman and another friend in New York that he created for his drawings, alluding to dance. I also have a very abstract black-and-white photograph of cubes by one of my idols, Irving Penn. On one wall of the bedroom are two beautiful cube paintings by Sol LeWitt. On another wall are four black-and-white nude self-portraits by Peter Hujar, created during a master class led by Richard Avedon at his studio. They are very moving and sensual, yet also raw. You just see the wall, the floor, and Peter Hujar moving like a faun.

What is your most recent acquisition?
A painting by Jean Degottex, a French artist I’ve admired since my adolescence. I bought it at Sotheby’s. It’s like a childhood love; I was thrilled to find this work from the 1960s. It now hangs in my apartment in Paris. I also recently acquired a sculpture by Bourdelle. To me, the Bourdelle Museum is one of the most beautiful museums in Paris. I never imagined I would one day be able to own a bronze by that sculptor.

When you buy a work, do you know where you are going to place it?
No, not at all. I let dialogues among the works develop organically. For example, I have two black-and-white photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. One shows a rock in the water at Stromboli, Sicily; the other is a leg, a detail of an antique bronze statue photographed in Naples. I bought the first ten years ago, the second five years later. I didn’t think they would “get along;” yet, placed side by side, they both evoke the Mediterranean in a very austere way, reminiscent of a Rossellini film. Being captivated by an image is like being seduced by a person. You immediately know whether you will love it deeply, because it resonates with your unconscious, striking your most sensitive chords.

Are you a passionate, emotional collector?
Absolutely. I don’t ever think in terms of speculation. I have never resold a work. A long time ago, I bought a large drawing by Daniel Arsham, Eyes (2010), depicting a head with two cubes in place of the eyes. I don’t want it at my home any longer, so I hung it in my boutique on rue Saint-Honoré, and it works well there.

Is there an artist whose work you dream of owning?
Yes, Ellsworth Kelly! It’s masterful how he creates such resonance and emotion with so few means: using large, solid cut-outs in two colours and very simple shapes. I could look at his paintings endlessly; it becomes almost meditative. I would give anything for a Kelly! I love everything he’s done, even photographs of him on the rooftops of New York with his friends in the 1950s. His plant drawings are absolutely sublime. I would also love to acquire an ancient bronze or marble one day, but those are so rare and beyond my financial means.