At exactly moment this show began—with a Rhye intro that kicked in as the rows of pristine white shirts, ribbed vests, and black socks swayed in the midsummer dusk from the washing lines above us—the iPhone of Hermès artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas illuminated. On the line was Antoine, his 20-year-old son, calling from the U.S.: He’d forgotten a password, he knew his dad would remember: Could he send it?
Pierre-Alexis is the great-great-great grandson of Thierry Hermès, who in 1837 founded this house to produce accessories for Paris’s horse-drawn elite. Antoine, who may well end up working at Hermès one day, would be continuing a tradition of stability that is not limited to family lineage. Take Véronique Nichanian, who designed this collection: She has been in charge of the Hermès men’s ready-to-wear studio since 1988.
After this gently joyful show I asked Dumas—whose phone call I’d eavesdropped on—if there was an advantage in having a designer who (second only to Lagerfeld at Chanel) is the longest-serving in Paris—especially in a moment when the menswear world is so suffused by change. He said: “One of the strengths of Hermès is that we are really long-term. We’ve really built our relationship with our creative team. So yes, to work with Véronique for such a long time is a blessing.” He added: “And yes, this world is changing all the time. But we are strong because we have the true ability to reinvent ourselves. We don’t totally reinvent ourselves though, and Véronique teaches us that, season after season, that you don’t have to destroy everything to change.”
This collection was a good example of the deep, gradated shift Dumas was talking about. The shapes were modern but based on 181 years of Hermès savoir faire and 30 years of Nichanian experience. So, yes, there was a tracksuit, but you couldn’t call it sportswear—unless your sport of choice is looking like the the ultimately understated contemporary man of leisure. Cut, like much of the outerwear in this collection, in étrivière lambskin, almost black but with a slight teal hue, and featuring the same zippered detail at the cuffed hem that ran through many of the pants in this collection, it was outrageously neutral in its simpleness. The H-fronted sports sandal below it told you where it was from, if you didn’t have the eye to know already. There were some ridiculously difficult to achieve T-shirts, pants, and a knit cardigan with a front panel in four color lines of water snake: Again the straightforwardness of the silhouette was belied by the technique of the garment. And so it went.
I was especially taken with the pin-tucked cotton serge trousers, draw-stringed, with the zippered cuff hem and the lambskin blousons in panels of beige embossed with an oversized color-block Indian print. Bags included what looked like an oversize Birkin in blue with gently off-color spray details and versions of the Plume in the same colorway, plus crocodile. Forgetting the expense for a moment, how confident would you have to be in your own identity (and legs) to choose a plain cotton summer short—cut neither too wide nor too long—from Hermès, rather than somewhere whose brand identity, rather than yours, came first? This was not an earthquake of a collection: and that, as ever, was the not its aim. This was deep menswear—slowly nurtured, and beautifully observed.
