For Hermès, the leap from the narrative expanse of a silk carrè to the intimate topography of a porcelain plate is a natural evolution of craft. In its latest tableware service, “Natures Marines,” the legendary French house dives beneath the surface, enlisting British illustrator Katie Scott to translate the hidden, undulating world of marine botany into a sumptuous dining landscape.
While Scott is renowned for her meticulous, almost Haeckelian studies of terrestrial flora, this 34-piece collection required a shift in perspective. Her creative pilgrimage led her to the marine herbarium at London’s Natural History Museum, poring over centuries-old dried algae specimens. It is the quiet, pressed beauty of these archives—the way organic forms flatten and fan out across a page—that dictates the composition of the porcelain.
The resulting service is a tableau alive with swaying wakame, delicate samphire, and architectural sea fans. In a feat of curatorial variation, no two motifs are repeated across the entire collection. The palette—a sophisticated triad of earthy pink, deep green, and sand—is deceptively complex; artisans employed nearly 30 distinct shades to capture the translucent depth of submerged foliage. “Natures Marines” is a welcome return to lush, figurative illustration for the maison, transforming an ordinary dinner party into a curated scientific expedition—and plates that looks delicious enough to eat off.
