At Hermès, nothing is wasted. In a workshop where offcuts become objects, the house’s most unexpected pieces begin as everything else’s leftovers.

On the outskirts of Paris, in Pantin, there is a room that looks like a treasure chest. Tall shelves hold silk, leather, porcelain, crystal and metal, materials set aside by the house’s workshops because they no longer have a use. This is where petit h begins, and where the rules of making things are turned upside down.

Created in 2010 from an idea by Pascale Mussard, a sixth-generation member of the Hermès family, petit h doesn’t start with a sketch. It starts with the material. Artists and artisans unfold, handle and combine what they find, and wait for an idea to appear. The artisan’s mastery of the house’s sixteen métiers meets the artist’s imagination, and the results feel strangely inevitable. As the motto goes, nothing is lost, everything is transformed and an object is created.

What emerges is joyful, practical and a little mischievous. A table mirror is stacked from cork, crystal and bullcalf. A wheeled horse, dressed in a striped blanket, doubles as a shelf. A carafe borrows its handles from a Kelly bag, and an electric guitar is built from a saddle tree that was never made into a saddle. Each piece is a limited edition or one of a kind, made to be repaired and handed down.

Since 2018, the workshop has been led by Creative Director Godefroy de Virieu, a designer trained at Ensci in Paris. His approach is guided by curiosity and by a love of objects that are as practical, durable and ingenious as possible. If petit h has a signature, he says, it is astonishment.

The workshop also travels. Each year, petit h makes two stopovers abroad, working with local artists and a local set designer to create pieces inspired by the host country.

Its Dubai stopover is on at Dubai Mall from October 5 to 20, and includes a falcon stand and an incense holder, two objects that show how a piece of leather or a fragment of porcelain can take on new meaning depending on where it lands.