We tend to use the expression “the end of an era” quite lightly; it seems like every change of creative director in a brand, which nowadays happens more often than not, signifies a big switch where something major ends and a whole new universe begins. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and an “era” in fashion cannot comprise only a handful of collections. Seventy-six collections for the same house? That's an era, and this Saturday, January 24th, at Palais Brongniart, it came to an end. Véronique Nichanian, the designer who has stayed the longest time as a creative director of the same house (without being its founder), says farewell to the Hermès menswear runways after almost four decades of filling them with her creations, becoming a true symbol of the impact of women being given the position they deserve in the industry, of the value of timeless quality and of a generation of great minds that is slowly dimming its light.
Fashion is ever-changing, but being fully aware of that fact doesn't make changes easy to accept. While it's true that innovation signifies excitement and promising expectations that we hope are fulfilled and surpassed, something new also means leaving something behind. Being a creative field that is strongly and deeply rooted in nostalgia, in bringing back elements of the past to the present, whether as a reinterpretation, as an homage or simply as a way to try and retrieve a spark we felt once existed and no longer does, it is always bittersweet, more bitter than sweet, bidding farewell to something or someone that by its ever-there presence transmitted a sense of comfort and stability to this rapidly transformative industry.
Most of the traditional, signature and historical fashion houses have histories where a sense of conservatism and of preserving their roots has permeated the biggest part of their long life, with the 21st century and especially the last decade being the disruption in the order and the infiltration of the newer generations and their fresh, deconstructive and tongue-in-cheek ideas into their first lines, with the reshaping of not only codes but also the aesthetics, taste and style this signifies. Only two houses were able to make the steady bridge they built in the 20th century reach our present days, one being Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel and the other being Véronique Nichanian’s Hermès. When Lagerfeld left this world, Nichanian became the designer who has stayed the longest in a house they didn't found in the whole history, an achievement nothing short of amazing and one that, knowing how fashion moves now, will be impossible to surpass.
Véronique arrived at Hermès in 1988, in a moment where their womenswear line was their winning horse, and when, to no one's surprise, the men of the family had the responsibility of dressing the women of the world. To give this traditional history a 180º twist, a woman arrived with the task of dressing the men, and she not only won her place but preserved it for decades and decades. The only way of successfully staying in the same place is possessing the knowledge of the crafts that allows a constant creation rooted in high-quality practices, materials and ideas; the deep understanding of the necessities and desires of their target audience; and the possession of a strong sense of atemporality and of the knowledge of what makes garments timeless, a time-tested formula by Véronique that has worked for her throughout all these years.
Hermès has created a wardrobe that adapts to the lifestyle of the modern man, with the meaning of “modern” changing and evolving through the decades and Nichanian designs changing and evolving with them. This last collection was more of that, making her last show not a “the best of” or a self-homage but crafting another tasteful collection that can be added to her portfolio of seventy-three other tasteful collections and that makes her last look be as wearable, as functional and as much of a signature of her legacy as a designer as any other she has ever done.
There's not much to add in terms of the description of the garments or the collection that is not already evident by just looking at them. The colour palette is impeccable; the high quality with which each piece is crafted is outstanding as usual; every piece is equally desirable and digestible, making it extremely easy to place it in real life, a quality that is becoming more and more valuable. It's another hit from a creative that gifted us many during all these years. While goodbyes are bitter, it's sweet being able to give a standing ovation to someone that has decided it's finally time to receive it, someone who knew that, after all these years of giving to the world “clothes for today and forever” — as the last line of the press release reads — her job was already done.
