15 May

Festival / Festival des Amazones (1992)

festival001797S33

Design by Henri d’Origny

Year: 1992, F2013 (as Festival des Amazones)

No. 1797

Hermes.com: Catherine de Medici is widely credited with the invention of a new form of saddle, allowing ladies to ride sidesaddle in comfort, galloping alongside their male companions. Shapes and styles evolved down to the twentieth century, when women riders asserted their right to sit astride their horses, and use traditional saddlery and harnesses. Today, sidesaddle riding is a nostalgic tribute to a vanished world, glimpsed in the equestrian portraits of the nineteenth-century French artist Alfred de Dreux. His elegant amazones are impeccably turned out, in stylish hats and riding-coats, decorously aloft, legs together against their horse’s flank. Inspired by models in the collection of Emile Hermès, and catalogue designs from the prestigious house of Camille on Rue du Château-Landon à Paris, this carré offers a selection of the finest sidesaddle harnessing, beautifully crafted in embroidered leather and wool felt, with piping and inlays describing floral motifs and scrolling patterns in rich colours, complementing the amazone’s sumptuous velvet and taffeta attire.

From 1992 booklet:

92Sfestivalcopy692Sfestival7





Leave a Reply