Space Popular quilts Hermès Maison windows in London

By Amara Osei

Nearly 500 quilted textile pieces — joined by, in Fredrik Hellberg's estimate, hundreds of miles of stitching — now fill the six arched windows of the Hermès Maison at 166 New Bond Street. The architects call it 'Ciel de Lit'. Londoners can call it the cosiest thing on the street until 30 October 2026.

Space Popular, the duo of architects Fredrik Hellberg and Lara Lesmes, built the installation as a surreal drawing room in cotton-and-silk-blend quilts: quilted sash windows ready to lift into quilted clouds, a roaring fireplace, a door left just ajar. The palette is warm. The inspiration is Georgian — the architectural history of the Maison itself — plus the strange magic of, in the duo's words, 'moments between sleeping and waking'.

The details carry the humour. Floating Hermès gloves draw the curtains. A silk scarf sits on an easel. A leather belt plugs into a stitched socket. Soft fabric world meets hard luxury goods, and the contrast does the work.

Who made it, and how much stitching?

Space Popular has turned increasingly to textiles over the past decade, drawn to how the medium sits close to the body, humanises architecture and, as they see it, tells stories over millennia. This was their first go at quilting, done with London-based crafts specialist Andy Knight and a group of artisans, who joined nearly 500 pieces into the largest installation the practice has made to date.

'It's incomprehensible how many hundreds of miles of stitching there is, yet how slow and precise it is too, because of all of the ornaments and details. You'll see that the stitching doesn't miss a millimetre,' Hellberg said.

The duo also worked to Hermès' 2026 creative theme of the year, 'Venture Beyond', and to the whimsy of the Maison itself: a village of six buildings containing 55 uniquely designed rooms behind the windows.

Which Hermès objects appear?

Curated with the Hermès team, mostly from the Home collection:

• The Pippa stool, designed in 1983 by architects Peter Coles and Rena Dumas (1937–2009). Dumas' studio, Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure (RDAI), now under artistic direction of Denis Montel, designed the London Maison and sets the interior vision for Hermès stores worldwide.
• A luxurious sofa re-edition by Jean-Michel Frank.
• The Les Trotteuses d'Hermès occasional table.
• The Pantographe arc floor lamp.

What legacy are they stepping into?

Hermès window design has its own canon. Leïla Menchari (1927–2020), the Tunisian designer-decorator, oversaw the Faubourg Saint-Honoré windows from 1978 to 2013; her work is collected in the book 'Leïla Menchari, the Queen of Enchantment', published by Hermès.

'This is the kind of legacy that you're stepping into,' said Hellberg, who names Wang & Söderström among admired collaborators of their generation. He's blunt about why the street matters: 'We like to create things that make you look twice, widen your mind and spark curiosity,' and, 'At our core we are really interested in what people like and what people enjoy.'

Stand there in person and New Bond Street joins the fiction — black cabs, shifting light, architectural reflections mirrored softly into the scene. Free theatre, for eleven months.