Fashion has taken a turn for the sexy. It tends to happen in spring seasons, but this year it’s more pronounced than ever, with cone bras from the 1950s and Victorian underpinnings like hoop skirts and pantaloons from more than half a century earlier turning up on the runways. Hermès’s Nadège Vanhée had a similar instinct: “What I want to convey as the message is the idea of an assertive sensuality,” she said. “You know, it’s about the summer, a feel-good summer, and, really, this relationship you have with your skin.” Only she isn’t interested in the styles of the past; she’s thinking about the way to put a luxury spin on the sheer trend, and how the Hermès clients would mix it with her leather pieces.
Vanhée’s proposal was sheer mesh, which she cut into fluid pants with zips up the sides that can be undone, if the mood strikes, to create the suggestion of a maxiskirt shape. While intertwining lightness and sturdiness, she paired these with leather jackets cut as thin as cotton that were cropped and left open over a bra top or cut like an anorak and belted at the waist. They were shapes lifted from activewear, with the casual, relaxed attitude to match. Her message about feeling comfortable in your skin was especially resonant because she was one of the few designers to cast models of diverse sizes this season in Paris, where many others have stubbornly and frustratingly reverted to the size-0 mien.
Another way Vanhée caught the lightness everyone wants in summer was to use the silk twill of Hermès’s famous scarves—in this case both block- and screen-printed—for breezy garments like a shirtdress built on leather shoulders or a short romper. A woven leather dress and another in embroidered mesh picked up the graphic pattern of the scarves, and save for a few fuchsia looks, everything came in warm neutral shades that looked baked by the sun. Providing a steady foundation for these vacation-ready pieces was Vanhée’s typically excellent footwear: streamlined and chic riding boots on the one hand, and on the other, playful but practical clog sandals.
