“Just a nice, cool guy in the city!” Véronique Nichanian shrugged cheerfully when asked the standard question about what she was thinking about with her spring Hermès show. Several hundred extremely hot guys were just streaming out of the show at the Place D’Iena having applauded her collection to the rafters. An intense June heatwave has pushed the temperature above 35 Celsius in Paris, and to lord knows what inside the non-air-conditioned spaces so many brands have chosen to show in. Hermès, at least, had kindly greeted us at the door with cold flannels with which to mop our brows.
I know, I know. Complaining about the weather, as we’ve all been doing in reviews, is boring—but its relevance really does apply to all the clothes we’re viewing in this spring season. For Hermès, the problem of what to do with its fine leathers in summer was solved by Nichanian by, well, aerating them. The first look had a putty-colored leather T-shirt with a line of an open-weave technique running from outside sleeve to shoulder.
It was just a hint of what lay ahead. By Look 7, a summer bomber—at a distance in a khaki-gray stripe—was woven in strips of leather. There were similarly-ventilated cardigans, sleeveless tees and a shirt. Then, whole trousers seemed to made from the same lattice-work, though at this point you couldn’t tell whether it was loomed in something like lacquered raffia or rattan.
“I was looking for lightness,” Nichanian said, although, interestingly, she’d not designed it as a beachy-sporty summer vacation collection at all. Instead here was Hermès at its most Hermès: making a modern city wardrobe for a discreetly relaxed wealthy man. Mainly crafted in browns, inky-blacks and light neutrals, these were garments which passed as low-key normal but were in fact designed and made to perfection. “It’s the proportion I liked—wider trousers, shorter jackets,” Nichanian declared.
Once you got your eye in, all sorts of details started to pop out. The Hermès scarves rendered as almost organic-looking fringed bandanas—these turned out to be leather, too. Also the rope-soled thong sandals. The bits and bobs of bracelets. Liquid hammered satin or long-sleeved fine cashmere T-shirts were proposed as eveningwear.
And of course, there were bags aplenty. Nichanian said she likes oversize bags for men. She’d designed totes printed with gamboling monkeys “just for fun,” and other iterations of weekend bags. One seemed to be an almost triple-decker tan Birkin bag variant. He certainly has no money worries, this nice cool Hermès guy.
