The polkadot perforations on one beautiful tan calfskin jacket in this showroom presentation were inspired by the house’s Mangeoire bag, which itself was inspired by the nosebags used to feed famished horses. This made for a fitting motif in a season when Hermès menswear is taking a breather. It is currently regrouping and gathering strength between the glorious last gallop of one departing artistic director, Véronique Nichanian, and the introductory canter of another: Grace Wales Bonner.
Under Nichanian, Hermès menswear became a reference point for clothing whose fabrication was as highly rarefied as its image was aspirationally accessible. My female colleagues have long been especially hot to trot for Hermès menswear shows because Nichanian deployed all of Hermès’s sophistication to articulate something fundamental: an appreciative vision of straightforwardly urbane and sexy men.
My own collar got pretty hot at this presentation. This studio-designed collection was very much in the Nichanian tradition, and it was highly stimulating to get up close and personal with the ingeniously constructed highish-rise pants in serge, drill and gabardine. Their poetic pleating was sometimes further spiced up with combat-adjacent patch pockets.
As a house of leather goods, Hermès always seems compelled to import plenty of the material into its garment offerings. Here we saw a technically stunning lilac leather T-shirt with a perforated laser-print illustration and a sweatshirt-style V-stitch at the neck. There was a similarly stupendous gray leather aloha shirt, plus some almost Hermès-obligatory leather five-pocket pants. Leather sections were framed by ripstop in minimally structured parkas.
There was that Mangeoire-tribute jacket flagged in the first paragraph, a gorgeous black bomber with basketball-inspired topstitching, and a shaved calfskin high-collared zip-up blouson. That was my favorite leather piece, simply because it looked like it could live a real and rowdy life of wear and tear and become even lovelier with age.
There was a low-level background hum of 1950s-flavored western wear discernible in the high-waisted silk-linen shirt-jackets, the naive Rodeo-print shirting, and the sweater-vest cardigans in knit silk or linen mixes. A faded pink knit-cotton herringbone cardigan was a menswear coup de foudre: a garment that you have no presentiment of falling for until you see it and then covet it completely.
There were many such heartbreakers in a collection that was a delight to riffle through. Wales Bonner’s new articulation of Hermès menswear remains keenly anticipated, but this was a dreamy interlude.
