Before we get to Hermès, here is an I-will-keep-it-brief-don’t-worry history lesson on the origins of the Resort season. Once, unsurprisingly, it was about the idea that you were going away somewhere sunny and hot—like, a resort, duh—and you needed clothes suited to the temperature and the life you were going to lead when you got there. In our currently ever-faster, ever-more-seasons industry, that seems a delightfully quaint and charming concept, when the message—here is something new to buy—is a much simpler and less fanciful directive better suited to the near-insatiable multi-climate, multi-need demands of the world today. Hermès, on the other hand, save for a few very chic oversize and unadorned short cashmere coats cut with a reductionist’s eye to detail but with a maximalist’s lust for quality, still believes in the concept of Resort in an old school way. After all, given that everything the house does is designed to be fit for use and with a real sense of purpose, albeit rendered in the most luxurious, artisan-respecting way, what would be the point of just making some new things? Here, what you see is what you get, and what you get, for the most part, are clothes designed for the ideal (and idealized) getaway.
For creative director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, that meant several things. Primarily, it meant color with a bang, such as coral red, earthy orange, and electric blue, used for louche masculine-inflected cotton shirting and pants, worn with high sandals in the same colors, as well as the bands and stripes that punctuated the otherwise discreetly hued new version of the Kelly. The house’s equestrian heritage was riffed on with a sleeveless jacket in flawlessly lustrous conker brown leather, or a plongée black leather dress, etched with contrast stitching that amplified its long and sinuous lines; elsewhere, navy leather was painted with a repeat of an Asiatic circular swirl over a ’60s-feel coat and a box-pleated skirt. Lastly, Vanhee-Cybulski drew on that equestrian past in another way, though equally Hermès: She took the illustrations from a 17th-century riding manual as the inspiration for the scarf prints, which she used to entwine the throat or knot at the waist, or cut into ruffled, flowing dresses which were as easy as the prints were complex.
