Bali Barret, Tokyo

Since 2003, Madame Bali Barret's story has been written with a capital H - that of Hermès - where she oversees the women's world as artistic director of the Silk and Women's Textile collections. 

Before that, she created her own brand: Bali Barret ®. The ‘red bunker’ offers a brutalist face in Tokyo's Shibuya district. Taking the opposite approach to Japanese light constructions, the project frees itself from the context and introduces the notion of grafting with an archetype of military architecture. 

Distinguished in particular by the absence of a shop window, this UFO is inspired by bunkers and their restricted volumes, thick walls with sloping sides, loopholes and baffles inside. In this project, we take the problem in the opposite direction, with the red colour of the concrete facade acting as a landmark, visible from a great distance across the city. In the centre of Tokyo, this unexpected formalism, the opacity of the façade and the lack of information aroused the curiosity of passers-by. This was the aim: for 6 years, the shop has played a landmark role in the city.