Yahoo Finance Hermès RTW Fall 2021
On Saturday afternoon, a reporter gleefully left his laptop screen and headed out on a crisp and sunny Paris day to attend a real-live fashion show. Imagine that! Arriving at the Gendarmerie Nationale-Garde Républicaine, the venue for the Hermès fall 2021 collection unveiling, he sanitized his hands, put on a fresh surgical mask and entered a darkened tent — only to encounter about two dozen, well-distanced seating cubes, each equipped with headphones and a screen. Arrrgh!
There was a good reason, though. The runway modeling that took place here amid a set stacked with hundreds of orange Hermès hat boxes was bookended by two live performances — one beamed in from New York; the other from Shanghai. These helped accentuate the varied characteristics of Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s latest collection, which continued her recent exploration of tough-girl chic with the surprising addition of flou, the latter being something outside of her comfort zone, she said after the show.
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Tony Hermès is not the kind of house to issue a TikTok challenge, but it could. Seven dancers in New York roamed a vast stage appointed with swirling orange curtains, building from subtle, slow-motion voguing to the kind of full-on, synchronized joint-jabbing that keeps Gen Z glued to their phones. The women wore sweet smiles, raisin-colored turtlenecks, long jersey skirts edged in leather and tall boots with sturdy heels. The performance was charming.
And then the real-live fashion show — which you could also watch on your screen to get a better view of the leather seaming detail on the denim ensembles that opened the display, or the fringe that swished on leather and suede toppers. Vanhee-Cybulski paraded lots of neat, belted jackets, roomy coats, straight-cut trousers and pencil skirts that don’t constrict. After a surprising, sensual Helmut Lang-ish spring outing, she returned her focus to more reserved, patrician styles.
She used leather more sparingly than in the past, dabbing it here and there on a breezy cranberry trench coat, for example. Those jersey skirts from the New York performance made an appearance, along with a pleated dress with a high neck, loose sleeves and flecks of lurex.
The Shanghai performance had four lithe, short-haired dancers in leather pants and checkered sweaters frenetically shifting orange packing crates around the stage and flinging themselves and each other around them. It was a bit wrenching to watch, and TikTokers surely won’t emulate it. But if Celeste Barber is reading this, she should consider herself challenged!
Launch Gallery: Hermès RTW Fall 2021
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