Some designers cling strictly to the calendar, releasing their collections in rigid sequence, but others have imaginations that cannot be tied down to a particular season. For Nadège Vanhée, the artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear at Hermès, this desire to break free, to throw out the old rules, has resulted in an exquisite, extremely limited edition (a mere 16 looks!) that she refers to as sleeping beauties—their formal name is Collection Hors-Série, Women’s 2023 Savoir-Faire Collection.
Each of these creations, from the embroidered ivory swing coat to the silk jacquard Spencer jacket to the micromini woven with ribbons, is made from fabrics left over from previous collections. You might call it deadstock, but of course the end of a bolt of Hermès cashmere is not exactly a prosaic remnant; a swath of organza that forms the basis of a guipure-lace dress is no ordinary love.
Vanhée didn’t just want to breathe new life into old materials; she was also determined to salt her work with ancient needlework techniques—intricate embroidery, lace making, weaving, beading, passementerie—crafts that still exist, though sometimes just barely, in ateliers hidden throughout France. The designs are a balancing act between old-world skill and contemporary fashion. “I find it quite playful,” Vanhée explains. “It’s crazy cool, but it’s also conservative.”
These clothes are the furthest thing from fast fashion and, confronted with both their uniqueness and their not-shy prices, you may find yourself wondering: What does the concept of value mean in these fraught times? If we are more and more attracted to the idea of buying less, doesn’t this also mean that when we do purchase something, we want it to be incredibly beautiful, ready to be in service for years to come and thus, perhaps most importantly, not adding to our overflowing landfill and doing more harm than good?
For Vanhée, these questions are not merely academic. Though her designs are breathtakingly fastidious, she evinces a surprising enthusiasm for imperfection and for vintage finds—she laughs that she can always find something to do with a broken plate—so it is no surprise that she loves working with raffia and other natural elements notoriously difficult to control. And maybe this love of the one-off—no two smashed dishes or pom-poms are exactly alike—is what draws her to the spectacular array of arcane techniques she embraces. Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw bigoudis, the decorative cords that reprise a technique from the 1850s and echo the way hair is wrapped around curlers (bigoudis) that Vanhée has replicated here with silk threads?
While these clothes are admittedly rarefied, Vanhée believes they represent a new kind of status symbol—one that whispers so quietly it can only be heard by those paying the most careful attention. “During the 20th century, you were dressing for your social status to be recognized,” she says, “but over the last 10 years, women began expressing their individuality more and more through their clothes.”
Consider her chocolate brown velvet dress, stunning in its simplicity, but with embellishments—those bigoudis!—created in Saint-Étienne by the last remaining artisan with this know-how. (Playing that old game of trying to pick just one thing, I am torn between this irresistible piece and the double-face cashmere coat that sports a three-dimensional beaded collar—I could toss this over a cardigan and a tutu and wear it every day.)
Of course no fashion, no matter how rarefied, exists outside the real world, which can intrude with devastating consequences. Vanhée remembers that the first Collection Hors-Série, in those halcyon days before the pandemic, was meant to literally welcome people into the Hermès flagship on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. (Hermès, never a company to toot its own horn, has kept these sleeping beauties strictly under wraps.) When the second collection coincided with the onset of COVID and people stopped visiting stores, she decided to embed the codes of the house itself in her designs, a subtle homage she calls “a postcard of the Faubourg.” Turns out she loved this idea, and this third collection also has these tributes, if you know where to look: A cape hand-embroidered with raffia has a graphic motif that nods to the ironwork at the Paris shop; the neckline of a cashmere shift is embroidered with bugle beads inspired by
its mosaic tiles.
“It’s really about the reconciliation of the ideas of modernity and tradition,” Vanhée says. Modernity and tradition—the resurrection of vanishing techniques but also the delight of seeing what we haven’t seen before—isn’t that what is important in our own wardrobes, our own lives, and the fantasy that lies at the heart of the very best fashion? “It’s not really about a Parisian style,” Vanhée muses, despite the deeply Gallic chic of her own designs. “It’s more about a memory of Paris—you know, the dream of Paris.” Or maybe the dream of a guipure-lace frock, glinting in the sun as you close your eyes and see yourself ambling down the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a stroll no less compelling even if you are five thousand miles away.
Fashion Editor: Max Ortega. Hair, Joey George; Makeup, Fulvia Farolfi for
CHANEL Beauty. Produced by The Canvas Agency.
