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Decorating Hermés

When Hermés New York began looking for a different design for the holiday windows of its Madison Avenue store, they turned to Washington and Lee alumnus Charlie Baker, of the Class of 2004. Charlie’s work, which uses twigs and felled trees from the beaches of Long Island, is featured in an article in Thursday’s New York Times. (Thanks to Caitlin Hagan ’05 for her tweet calling attention to the story.)

Charlie, who studied landscape design at the New York Botanical Garden, has his own company, Baker Structures, which specializes in patios, gazebos, arbors, pergolas, gates and decks. He has become known for using unpeeled cedar sculptural driftwood, reclaimed lumber, stone and plant materials to create his designs. After his work was featured in Connecticut Cottages and Gardens last summer, Hermés called.

The assignment, according to the piece in the Times, was to create a design based on a line of porcelain plates and teacups. That led Charlie to develop what he called a “crazy everything-growing-together-into-something way.” You can see two of the windows on the Times website at this link and this link. Anyone who happens to be shopping in New York this season, please snap a photo of the windows and send it our way.

A Spanish major at W&L, Charlie comes by his artistic talents honestly: his father is a New York-based fashion and fine-art photographer, and his mother owns and operates Martha Baker Landscape Design in Greenwich, Conn.

If you know any W&L alumni who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.