With fashion being so fashionable, constants are hard to find, but there are outliers of consistence. Hermés is one such brand. It is, as today’s AW/’21 show demonstrated, perpetually reassuring. For starters, the company’s menswear designer – Veronique Nichinian, once described as the "high priestess of menswear" – has been in the job for over 30 years. An astonishing feat when you consider how much ‘churn’ the industry is now accustomed to. And then there’s the clothing itself, which is always nestled neatly in the middle of the fashion/luxury/heritage Venn diagram.
Lord knows we need as much reassurance as we can get right now, and reassuringly, the new collection is characteristically reassuring. There are those dusty Hermés colours (burgundy, sand, celeste) that so coolly convey supreme material quality, and those pillowy shearlings and wafer-thin leathers that give the wearer a texture they never knew they needed. The accessories – this season realised in warm autumnal colours and corresponding plaids – just look expensive, like they will soften and over the years and become part of the family.
Even the location of the film was reassuring. For those of us lucky enough to attend the Paris shows, the Mobilier National in the south of the city is unmistakable. When the fashion pack isn’t in town, the building is home to the French government’s ministry for furniture (which they have, of course), but for the past few seasons its municipal glamour has been commandeered by Hermès. This time, they turned it into a school, of sorts. As the camera panned amongst the gaggle of handsome, pleasantly gawky boys that lingered on the stairwells or chatted by the door, it felt as though we were watching a live feed of the last day of sixth form, like someone had spliced The History Boys and Zoolander.
The clothes are not especially scholarly, though. Trousers are cut wide and short, and pressed to maintain their angular shape. Jackets are boxy and finished with external pockets or stubby lapels, collars are popped, anoraks are hooded, knitwear is oversized, boots are fitted with chunky, slightly platformed soles and zippers abound. It’s mid-Century workwear, via the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Further succour comes via the obvious care and consideration that goes into the design. The blouson jacket, for example, seems to be a pretty simple, hard-to-get-wrong staple that every brand sells. But when you see the Hermès blouson, it’s clear that a better blouson is possible. The leather is impossibly soft, the shoulder is structured but not square, the collar is just-so, stiff enough to hold its own but not so bold as to jut. It’s reassuring to think that there are people still taking the time to make things as good as they can be.
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