After showing his final collection for Hermès today, Christophe Lemaire might have appeared his usual placid self, but he insisted he was churning with emotion inside. And if there were banked passions in the clothes, they were also exquisitely sublimated. It's what Hermès does best.
The serenity and purity of line of Lemaire's own collection always gelled well with the Hermès womenswear aesthetic, at least as it was laid out by Martin Margiela, whose redefinition of stealth luxury for the label still stands as a high point of fashion at the turn of the century. Lemaire put his own spin on that legacy when he cut the relatively penitent shape of a scarf-draped smock from palest python. Plainly extravagant—or extravagantly plain. But if he has often looked to Asia in the past—the first look was the kurta shape Lemaire has always loved—here it was Africa he drew on. That scarf drape? A little bit tribal. The accent colors? Saffron and sand. The patterns? More graphic tribalism, maybe even a hint of kente cloth. Travel is in Hermès' genes, so it was appropriate that, for his last spin round the track, Lemaire gently took us to parts far away. And all of it added some subtle energy to propel him toward new heights in his own career.
