“Hot town, summer in the city,” were the lyrics to B.B. King’s greatest classic, and the leitmotif of an insouciantly chic Hermès collection staged on a steamy Saturday in Paris.
Presented inside the Conseil de Surveillance, a temple to French 1930s Rationalist architecture, a beautiful building sadly devoid of air conditioning. So much so, the cast looked the coolest people – literally and figuratively – at this show.
An airy collection, where trousers were made of leather lattice material, and cardigans in knitted leather. Half the shirts had openings, inserts or little fabric windows, “latticed with light and air,” in the words of Hermès designer, Véronique Nichanian.
Lightness in leisure, with striking new proportions – wide pants and short jackets – and a huge sense of ease.
“It’s about a guy being cool in the city, and the sense of the wind blowing through it,” added Nichanian.
She opened with surgical smocks or Henleys – in second-skin calfskin, all worn with a new fringed foulard. Not a tie anywhere. Then played around with multifunctional garments – chemise jackets or safari/parkas. When she did work with exotic skins, she used them in hunters gilets.
Her leather sandals full of slits; her flip flops were trimmed with rope. Over a dozen guys carried huge, big bags, totes, weekenders or sailor keep-alls.
“I love a great big bag, since I am a tiny one,” laughed the diminutive, but always dynamic designer.
Big deep bags made in canvas and leather, or finished in prints of show jumpers or a dancing monkey, “just for fun, as we need a little more these days.”
After last season, when she stunned Hermès veterans with a squadron of shorts, Nichanian this time abandoned them completely, just when every second menswear collection had multiple short pants options.
She made it her much admired understated palette of putty, string, vanilla, dust and coffee, and produced in the finest fabrics available, there is no better statement of easy elegance in menswear today than Hermès.
The opening lines of King’s classic tune rhymes: “Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck getting’ dirty and gritty.”
Nothing could be further from that chez Hermès, thanks to these excellent clothes.
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