Leïla Menchari, the Queen of Enchantment

Text by Michèle Gazier There are artists who seem to have lived many lives, and whose work is intimately grounded in exceptional places and encounters. And there are writers who are able to render perfectly the charm and the fullness of these lives and these works. Such is the case of “Leïla’s tale” as it is conveyed here by Michèle Gazier. Leïla Menchari is a woman smitten by beauty who, between 1978 and 2013, supervised the window displays for the Hermès store on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. Her creations and her talent to make the colour of silks sing recount a story that began in the 1930s in the direction of Tunis… Since, first of all, there are the places. Born into a family in love with modernity, the little girl discovered the fabulous garden that the American Jean Henson had created at Hammamet. Welcomed by the Henson couple, she studied successively at the Beaux Arts School of fine arts in Tunis, then the Beaux Arts School of fine arts in Paris where her creative life began, before the doors of Hermès opened for her in 1961. Her two cultures – Tunisian and French – came together happily alongside the decorator Annie Beaumel. When she left in 1978, Leïla Menchari became solely responsible for the window displays of 24, Faubourg Saint Honoré. Prefaced by Axel Dumas, President of Hermès, this richly illustrated work presents 137 Hermès window displays designed by Leïla Menchari between 1978 and 2013. An unforgettable journey. Michèle Gazier, is a writer and author of some twenty works – novels, short stories, essays on literature and art. As a translator, she introduced France to authors such as Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Juan Marsé. She co-directed the Éditions des Busclats with Marie-Claude Char. Her most recent novel, Silencieuse, was published by Le Seuil in spring 2017.