Hands Up: Kevin Germanier (Germanier)

THE HANDS OF COLOUR

His hands immersed in beads. Beyond his black and white silhouette, within his Parisian studio where the table sparkles, is a disco land in broad daylight. Like pixelated manga, an explosive tale lined with thirty-seven kilos of multicolored marbles, assembled one by one. His hands so skillful, so agile, to which he says, “In the beginning, we were not comfortable, we hurt ourselves, we pricked ourselves. And then at one point, [these hands] move forward without thinking. It’s like if they had their own brain. They understand the moment when they manage themselves… To be sure, from feathers to sequins, Kevin Germanier likes to play with light, as with color. To assemble in order to better divide. Regarding his colour palette, he says: “It looks like a buggy computer, a sizzling TV”. Brushing a Swarovski print in preparation to embroider it, he says his hands are in search of a new silhouette – like the tactile echo of a dream. There was a letter that he sent to himself, at seven years old. Or when, in London, at Central Saint Martin’s School, he dreamed of a “composition around a body that moves with light.” Thigh-high boots, a harness, a full face mask – for this collection, the pop parade of previous seasons is adorned with more protective garments. A digital Amazon in 4D therefore; gladiatrix signed by these hands who have seen all the colours. His hands know from where they have come: his mother, his grandmother, and all the Germanier tribe who, today, now knit for the house. These helping hands directed towards him, the “control freak,” someone who makes a “love error” to find some form of salvation in imperfection. Someone who invents new beading techniques to at a new volume, a new story. His hands, which in 2021 made Bee bottles sparkle for Guerlain; who has erected an “artefact” in pieces of crystal for Baccarat, as part of the “Harcourt Show”. The hands of a child king who draped his little brother and then dressed them. His sister’s Barbie, too: “I couldn’t sew, I glued things. I did so many drawings then that people used to call me the photocopier. Her hands thus a kaleidoscope with ten fingers – and a really beautiful slap to good taste. “The important thing,” says Germanier, “is to have an identity.” @laurence-benaim