American photographer Tierney Gearon turns an unlikely collection of Hermès beach towels into a visual journey, capturing them across landscapes and architectural settings—from Japan to Colorado.
The story began by chance in the early 1990s, during a family holiday in St Barths, where Gearon discovered a small boutique run by French couple Catherine and Pero Feric. The experience felt almost surreal: प्रवेश was selective, controlled by the owner at the door, and inside, shelves overflowed with stacks of vividly colored towels set against eccentric Caribbean décor.
Over time, these towels became part of Gearon’s personal rituals. With their bold graphics and striking palettes, they felt less like objects and more like portable artworks—something she would wrap around her children as they emerged from the sea. By 2020, the collection had grown modestly, but as she began encountering the towels in online searches for collectible design, it quickly expanded into an archive of more than 300 pieces.
In recent years, Gearon has traveled with a selection of the towels, photographing them in dialogue with their surroundings—natural landscapes, architectural spaces, and everyday environments. The result is a kind of visual travelogue, where design, photography, and exploration intersect. In her self-published, limited-edition book The Collection, the towels appear in shifting contexts: spread across a Moroccan courtyard, illuminated against a Mexican home, fashioned into a tent in the Hamptons, interacting with architecture in Japan, or wrapped around a cabin in Colorado.
For Gearon, the towel becomes more than a functional object—it transforms into a vessel for memory and emotion, evoking ideas of home, childhood, escape, and joy. The project unfolds as a personal archive and visual diary, reflecting on beauty, place, and time, and suggesting that even the simplest object can become art when shaped by imagination.
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Tierney Gearon says:
My journey with Hermès beach towels started in St. Barts in the early 1990s
I bought my first Hermes towel in 1991. At that time, the Hermes boutique was run by a sophisticated French husband-and-wife team, Catherine and Pero Feric. The husband would stand at the door and decide who could — or could not — enter. If you were lucky enough to be invited into their carefully curated space, the first thing you would see was a wall of shelves with towering stacks of colorful towels. Piles of gorgeous merchandise were juxtaposed with idiosyncratic Caribbean décor.
Being visual, I was instantly drawn to the playful, eye-catching designs. These thick, elegant, and magnificent pieces became part of our daily lives — wrapping my kids in vibrant, tactile art and adding a pop of color to my imagery.
Over the years, what began as a single treasured towel soon grew into a beloved collection of 300. During Lockdown, I became more passionate, searching day and night for every design I could find. Each piece celebrates artistry and craftsmanship.
Their beauty inspired a unique, creative project: a travelogue that merges my love for design, photography, and exploration. So, for the next three years, I photographed my towels on a road trip around the world, from the vibrant streets of Mexico City, the big skies of Montana, the serene coasts of California, and the rich cultures of India, Marrakech, Greece, Japan, Hawaii, and, always, back to my spiritual home base and where the project stared , the light and magic of St. Barts.
Each towel, carefully placed within its environment, becomes a part of the story, blending seamlessly with natural and cultural landscapes, inviting us to reimagine the connection between art and place.
This project is my visual diary. It is a meditation on beauty, place, and time – a celebration of how the simplest object can become art when framed by imagination.
A towel, through the right lens, is not just a towel. It’s a fragment of a larger story, a symbol of home, childhood, escape, and joy. The Collection is the intersection of my life as an artist, traveler, mother, and impulsive collector. It’s everything I love – gathered, layered, and set free into the world.
Published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies in the United Kingdom
© 2025 Tierney Gearon
www.tierneygearon.com
Photographs © 2025 Tierney Gearon
