Véronique Nichanian marked 25 years at Hermès with her show tonight. Afterward, there was a small party with not-small presents (this is Hermès, after all), and an utterly humble Nichanian was charmingly overwhelmed by all the attention. It's that humility that has helped turn Hermès menswear into a subtle juggernaut—and if that sounds like a contradiction in terms, then it's utterly apt. Did you ever imagine a collection for Hermès would revolve around a boatneck T-shirt? Or that one of the house's horsily patrician, country-clubby prints would look so fine beside Cole Mohr's tattoos and sandaled feet? Or that the eveningwear proposal for the world's number one luxury brand could be as unfussy as a double-breasted jacket (no shirt visible) over some gabardine pants? Nichanian is clearly confident, as well as humble.
It's the confidence that comes with a quarter-century of anticipating what the most demanding clientele in the world might be wanting. She can probably do luxury with her eyes closed at this point. That is always clearest with Nichanian's use of skins. Here, there was nothing as overt as the sumptuous croc that occasionally crops up in Hermès menswear, but she used silvery lambskin like it was cotton. That said, it was actually cotton and linen, the plainer fabrics, that defined the collection, so light and summery and invitingly casual. Nichanian knows that leisure is clearly luxury for those demanding clients.
