“My idea was really to walk around a very simple notion of air: A-I-R and this idea of how the air can be perceptible but also imperceptible.” Nadège Vanhée’s concept for her new Hermès collection made sense after the summer France had with its successive canicules—that’s what they call heatwaves here—but it was “in the pipes,” she said, well before the temperature spiked.
There was a touch of irony in her chosen theme. The tent set up at La Garde Républicaine for today’s show was stifling, and the long wait for guests to find their way to the venue because of Pride road closures meant that by the time the show started many of us were using our paper programs as fans as we watched prints of actual old-fashioned, hand-held fans breeze by. The uncomfortable heat made you appreciate the lengths to which Vanhée went to give her clothes built-in cooling systems.
It might be a sheath made in a fine gauge knit stitched with thin vertical strips of leather, or a coat with a carwash hem, or a parka that had been deconstructed at the waist, with a series of snaps holding the top and bottom parts in place. Other dresses were constructed with zippers that bisected the legs; zip them up and you have a miniskirt, unzip them and you’ve got a midi-length version. Zippers also featured on trousers; manipulated up and down, they could change the silhouette from full-legged to slim.
Vanhée, of late, has developed a reputation for the risqué, which is not unjustified given all the black leather and bare skin of her collection for fall. In a welcome development, she dialled back the provocation here, working in a sunny palette that started with creamy whites before culminating in vibrant shades of yellow and orange, and mostly restricting the leather to accessories and accents—it was a spring collection, after all. Fabrics like the crinkled silk faille of a slim dress were “feathery,” i.e. intentionally lightweight.
On the accessories front, a strappy thong sandal was a new addition to the naked shoe canon, and with summer boots a street phenomenon from Paris to New York, she showed a flat boot with the whipstitched details of a moccasin. Whether extreme weather was an influence or not, the collection had a winning, fresh informality with no unnecessary complications. Next comes Vanhée’s couture debut next January.
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