Hermés Hivier 2021

PreviousNext

A collection that encourages us to renew the movement of the world. Inside-outside, the clothes leave their framework, offering a palette of games of lines and colours: a source of energy. They bridge different worlds: from the inside to the outside and vice-versa.
Hybrid and practical, the garments are both casual and elegant. Voluptuous or compact materials run headlong into each other in audacious associations that blur the line between formal and informal.
Graphic signatures, distorted pockets, playfully asymmetrical. Borrowed from saddlery, the piqûres étrivière or piqûres filantes are discreetly visible. Graphic lines and geometrical variations design optimistic illusions of movement. An invitation to stroll; energy of journeys.
One wants comfort. The quest for suppleness and relaxation is expressed by reduced dimensions and pants with drawstring waists.
The colours — cumin, glycin, H red, frost blue — are here playfully blended with tones of liquorice, pepper and petroleum blue.

COLOURS

Liquorice, pepper, charcoal, petroleum blue, cumin, sulphur, absinthe, glycin, taupe, ivory, H red, wine red, frost blue.

PreviousNext

LINES

Parkas with hood, biker blousons with high collar, zipped straight blousons with contrasted double stitched pocket, over-shirts with hood or zipped with high collar, zipped straight blousons, over-shirts or zipped tee-shirts with saddle stitching, cardigans with zipped high collar in trompe-l’œil, jogging pants.
Parkas with high collar and hood, straight coats with playful unframed pockets, raincoats, zipped straight blousons with piqûres filantes, zipped sweatshirts with hood or high collar, zipped over-shirts with high collar, sleeveless waistcoats.
Three-button jackets and playful unframed patch pockets or a leather pocket.
Pullovers with polo collar, round collar, high collar, turtleneck collar, zipped collar or sleeveless with V neck.
Shirts with high collar, zipped shirts with high collar, large shirts with playful pockets and contrasted topstitching.
Tee-shirts with H quilting.
Jogging pants, large trousers with drawstring waist and piqûres filantes or patch pockets, tapered trousers with drawstring waist.

PreviousNext

FABRICS

Deerskin, lambskin, babylamb, calfskin.
Compact double wool, water-repellent compact cotton serge, plain technical cotton serge or with colourful checks, babylamb and technical serge inlays, Prince of Wales Toilmac, water-repellent technical cover, water-repellent wool and cashmere canvas, armoured water-repellent technical canvas.
Wool flannel.
Wool, cashmere and silk, 180s wool, wool and cashmere with blurry stripes in mohair, wool and wool tweed, ribbed cashmere, cashmere with saddlery drawing embroidered in lambskin.
Cotton poplin, compact cotton poplin, technical cotton poplin, Drive me Crazy printed silk and cotton.
Water-repellent technical canvas.
Wool flannel, cotton drill, cotton gabardine, technical cotton serge, compact cotton serge, water-repellent cotton serge and coloured braid, armoured water-repellent technical canvas.

ACCESSORIES

Haut à courroies and Fourre-tout 48h bags in Wooly canvas and Evergrain calfskin, Galop Fourre-tout bags in tartan tweed and Evercolor calfskin, Garden voyage bags in Wooly canvas and calfskin, clutches in Swift calfskin.
65 cm Étude pour un carré 2.0 fringed scarves in cashmere and silk.
Pendants in palladium metal, horn and Swift calfskin, bracelets and rings in palladium metal.
Sneakers in knit and calfskin and boots in calfskin.

PreviousNext

CONVERSATION

interview by Olivier Séguret

Véronique Nichanian and Cyril Teste’s first encounter was impromptu. Together they had somersaulted over the obstacle of an audience-free summer fashion show by inventing a new formula: a performance broadcast live from the Hermès workshops in Pantin. Behind the rigour that technical innovation demands, the clothes and movement of the men wearing them exhibited a unifying artistic emotion. Onscreen, something unknown took shape before our eyes.
Six months later here they are for a second act, a winter tale in a different setting entirely, namely the Mobilier national. Auguste Perret’s architecture, an ideal framework and inspiration, echoes the form of the collection that will be presented.

INTÉRIEUR / EXTÉRIEUR / JOUR

Véronique Nichanian: I am attached to the Mobilier national, which symbolises know-how and the transmission of knowledge, whilst exemplifying creativity. I see Auguste Perret’s minimalist architecture as an expression of masculinity. In the thirties Perret invented a kind of no-frills architecture, a purity of line in concrete and wood. It is the perfect space in which to conjure up a certain idea of our time and the newfound fluidity thanks to which one can now easily bridge worlds and behaviours that tended before now to be mutually exclusive. The inside and the outside now freely flow one into one another, as do the personal and the public, the private and the professional. I wanted my clothes to reflect that. The magnificent grand staircase upon which the models will parade is the show’s backbone: lights penetrate, revealing the high and the low, the inside and outside, while predicating movement between spaces. We will be everywhere, from the cellar to the stockrooms and all the way to the courtyard.

Cyril Teste: The film «Intérieur / extérieur / jour» was conceived with this space in mind. Its initial inspiration was a conversation we had about our relationship with the present-day world and its ever-diminishing boundaries. The guiding thread is the process in which Véronique is engaged. The staircase in particular holds special importance and was the film’s starting point. The staircase is also a geometric spiral: a spinal cord. It is the perfect passageway between inside and outside. The show will take place on these steps, three dozen or so models investing it with their energy.

Here lies one of the challenges of this mise en scène: verticality. Normally, a fashion show is predicated on horizontality. Be that as it may, we shall continue to concentrate on the clothes, and to distill the academic language of fashion in the space and volumes of this staircase.

There is a synergy between the way Cyril embraces the space and my conception of this collection. I wanted to defy categorisation, erase conventional limits, and build connections between families of clothing that tend to be separated. At a time when lifestyles are changing, we have been seeing new customs flourish. Our approach to clothing, now of utmost importance, is currently undergoing a transformation, and my job is to come up with propositions.

We have found in this subject a vast and rich common ground. We are both obsessed with precision, and my observation of Véronique’s work habits, her way of mastering and transforming constraint, has brought me a lot.

Another thing that connects my work to Cyril’s is the question we are always asking: how can we see beyond? I think that this collection echoes what we are all facing, but it also is a way of looking beyond it. My first idea when I began working on this was to choose very dark colours, false blacks; and then, little by little, colour and light had their say, too.

My goal is to be open to Véronique’s imagination, to give her her space, and to stage it. My goal is to make her work visible using a setup that will allow everyone to experience it up close and personal. This performance is a fashion show, filmed and broadcast live. It is predicated on two parallel sequence shots that separate or connect but are never interrupted.

Naturally, we are all keen on returning as quickly as possible to the irreplaceable warmth and fellowship of a fashion show with a live audience, but in the meantime, we need imagination to fortify our patience. With Cyril’s creative staging, the evocative power of the space, and the interconnectivity that virtual reality allows, we are beginning to reinvent ways of being together.

It’s also in this spirit that we are going to lend a kind of ubiquity to the spectator, the possibility of different points of view such as looking at the crowd with an autonomous eye. Close up or wide shots, tracking shots or still frames, continuity or fragmentation: the spectator gets to appropriate the collection’s playful spirit.

I want to believe in a form of optimism and pleasure indistinguishable from the creative spirit; and that is what this collection sets out to show. It offers new passageways between house and city, room and balcony, intimate and social. It erases landmarks, turns the formal into the casual and expresses an aspiration for lightness, and a welcome diversion.