This season’s Hermès collection traded its equestrian heritage for sensuality and softened silhouettes. Playing with the notion of traditionalism and classical styling, the house’s designer of 33 years, Véronique Nichanian, offered a study in tenderness and humble masculinity.
Parading down the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, models sported button-down T-shirts and turtleneck knits daubed with a hazy warped grid that echoed the cobbled walkway – truly intended to reflect the distorted tiles of a swimming pool, the print felt boundless. Plastered with the same faded geometric mosaic, handsome Haut à courroies came clutched by the Hermès boys, paired alongside undulating strip-stamped sweaters and blasé collared tops which came covered in creepy crawlies, crayfish and seahorses.
While crisp, deconstructed jackets were paired with casual schoolboy shorts, solar stitched knitwear and pyjama-light cotton took on tender summer suiting, boxy blazers and sheeny windbreakers. It was subversive and unpretentious, offering a nuanced wardrobe.
Lilac, apricot and raspberry slouchy trousers and relaxed cardigans were lightweight and informal, designed to be breezier than the summer wind. Uniting the apparel, the pastel palette cascaded into the canvas-edged neoprene sandals and bold sneakers on display. This Hermès collection boasted unparalleled craft and quality, but when it comes to Hermès we’d expect nothing less. It was opulent but it was also leisurely, sports-like and simply cool; a luxe summer wardrobe fit for the contemporary man.
Photography courtesy of Hermès.
