The storied Hermès boutique on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris as a dance club? Thanks to Hot Chip, yes. Actually, thanks should go firstly to Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, who invited the British band to perform during her Pre-Fall presentation. “It was the idea of turning the store into a Sunday brunch and . . . a house party,” she said amid a postshow throng of gyrating models who were busy getting down around her. “Why Hot Chip? I really love them. They have a strong sense of rhythm and a quirkiness that I like.” But, Nadège, they’re quite introspective, especially given they want to get you dancing. “Well, I’m into introspective fashion,” the designer said, laughing, “so I guess I relate to their music because of that, too.”
Except this collection seemed a rather less inward-looking affair than usual from Vanhee-Cybulski. Her Hermès has been marked thus far by its quietness, a kind of discreetly bourgeois, artistic brand of very adult refinement that has focused on the whisper of artisanal luxury rather than the holler of attitude to get the message across. This is hardly surprising; it’s a house whose absolute and unwavering commitment to quality, particularly in the way it can work leather like a dream, requires that it be handled with respect. Now, though, it feels as if Vanhee-Cybulski is starting to find her voice; she’s thinking of ways to put more of the her into Hermès.
She continued drawing on the label’s equestrian heritage, which she has done since her first collection, accompanied by some stylistic flourishes redolent of the late 1970s/early 1980s—capacious manteaus, jacquard sweater dressing, flared pants, and box-pleated scarf silk dresses whose prints were derived from the Memphis-era artist Nathalie Du Pasquier. Yet this time around things also got a little more youthful and very occasionally—and now I’ll need to whisper—just ever, ever so slightly street, albeit relative to the universe of Hermès, though somewhat closer to Vanhee-Cybulski’s own generation’s interests and preoccupations.
Consider, then, the knee-length little black dress that opened the proceedings, given a bit of a kick courtesy of a whip-thin chain belt and ultra-long boots resting on a super-chunky tread sole. Or the leather parka with grommet-stamped pockets that, thanks to its searingly vivid shade of green, nimbly navigated the line of good/bad taste—which is meant as a compliment by the way. Or the skinny trouser suit worn with a graphic sweater, a metal-embellished belt, and another pair of those chunky-heeled boots; it had a touch more androgyny, a tad more stomp.
