Pushing at the Lightness of Clothes at Hermès

The contemporary might of the fashion powerhouse enables them to achieve many improbable things – but as a myriad rained-out (or, this summer, sunned-out) al fresco fashion shows prove, despite the possibly apocryphal story of the very well-paid, private-jetting fashion shaman, the weather is one thing we can’t even predict, let alone control.

That is, except for Hermès, which fittingly showed its Spring/Summer 2027 collection in a white-hot venue that seemed to resurrect the summer’s canicule for an invited audience only. Nadège Vanhée had been working on this collection before that heatwave hit in June, but its experience only cemented a conviction in a collection that pushed at the lightness of clothes. “The idea of the sky, the idea of air, the idea of openness, the idea of freedom,” was how Vanhée described them. “The concept was airborne.” It takes a bit of reconciliation between that and the sturdy, indestructible leather goods that define Hermès in the mind’s eye. Airborne in a private jet, maybe, but not exactly flyaway. 

But for this collection, Vanhée stripped everything away. Silhouettes were close to the body, streamlined, details reduced and weight lifted. Colours were sunbleached to a pallor – sandstone, a barely there blue, then vermillion and a scorched-earth grey. But it was the fabrics that made the point most pertinently: filmy knits and lightened silks. Leather, when it appeared, was appliquéd in strips onto translucent knits, so light it wound up resembling jacquard stripes. “It’s really about breathing,” Vanhée asserted.

Vanhée barely has time to do that: she presented a collection in Los Angeles in June, and her first haute couture show – also the first for Hermès – will be shown in January, the start of the 190th birthday celebrations of the oldest luxury house in Paris. So perhaps that sparked a meditative feeling in this show, as well as the notion of weightlessness, something much-vaunted as a magical product of haute couture. Vanhée is tight-lipped about that development, but asserted that this collection was also about a pragmatism, with the idea of the parka running throughout, sometimes purely presented, sometimes sliced into jackets, skirts or dresses, as well as leather-bound coats in wax-treated cottons inspired by turn-of-the-century examples. There were filmy, mousseline skirts dissected with zips to allow their hems to drop: even double-layered, they had zero weight. “It vibrates in the air,” she said. Calfskin was tanned with brushes, leaving patinations that suggested a history, albeit (you guessed it) lightly treated. 

All of that would be impossible to achieve in a house without the resources of Hermès – resources meaning not money, but expertise, and the time for development. Some of the techniques here had been years in the making – much as Hermès spent half a decade in active research and development before launching its beauty line, and has been sneaking around behind-the-scenes prepping its haute couture for well over a year. And, of course, that expertise stretches back almost two centuries – ways of making carried between generations. Vanhée refuses to let Hermès’ history press on her heavily – her clothes are resolutely contemporary. That said, this show had nods to the past – “the sweet obsolescence of fashion” was an inspiration Vanhée cited behind an adoption of fan motifs, corrugated carwash hems on skirts and coats, as well as plissé scarves twisted into tops. A print from the 1990s, titled “Brise de Charm” (charm’s breeze – of course) was reiterated; and naturally all those fans were about getting air moving and circulating. They were hauled out over summer, when fashion shows ended up looking like Versailles ballrooms. 

Meanwhile, all that lightness had to be tethered with something. Vanhée made clever use of the double-tour wrapped leather strapping that is a logoless Hermès signature, using it at waist, wrist, sometimes neck (“it’s a bit sexual,” she allowed of that). Of the same ilk, Vanhée offered the cleverest – and most Hermès – take on branding for the season. Ventilating perforations in a tender suede coat spelled out “Hermès Paris” in morse code, perfect for summer afternoons with a member of MI6.