Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, the new artistic director of Hermès, acknowledged the inescapability of the label s classics after her debut presentation today. "You have to work with leather," she said. Then there s the equestrian heritage and those iconic silk scarves. Vanhee-Cybulski wasn t about to mess with any of it. As first encounters went, this was a respectful journey around the house, with enough wayward verve to suggest the relationship will be a happy one. The designer s first look layered a "riding spirit" blouson in midnight blue leather with a quilted lining inspired by a saddle pad. Various combinations of those elements—spirit, skin, saddle pad—would reappear later, but, right off the bat, there was the sense of a fresh eye, even more so with the leather dungarees that followed. These were paired with a man s shirt in white poplin and a white turtleneck. Next, a gorgeous trapeze coat, again in that dark leather.
The opening passage had a buttoned-up, sober rigor that revived memories of Martin Margiela s tenure at Hermès, surely the benchmark for anyone who came after. The redingote silhouette and the Rocabar-striped blanket coats in midnight blue double-face cashmere brought the country into the city. But Vanhee-Cybulski used the famous silk in slightly less predictable ways: as a bandanna print on a man s shirt in twill, as a panel on a leather skirt, or as a red silk jacquard of such intensity it might just scare the horses. A sweatshirt in "curaçao blue" mink suggested she d already got a handle on the thing that Véronique Nichanian does so well with the men s collection: materials of astonishing luxe turned to the most seductively casual ends.
