The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
PARIS, France — There was laundry hanging around in the Cloître des Corderliers, setting quite a Neopolitan rather than Parisian scene for the Hermés show tonight. It was white shirts, wifebeaters and boxer shorts, and black socks. The men essentials, apparently. As predictably non fashiony as it can possibly get.
It felt curiously completely at odds with a collection that toyed insistently with ideas of modernity and speed — the qualities usually associated with a sporty, active lifestyle. Veronique Nichanian likes to take the normal, even the boring, and give it the Hermès twist — using beautiful leathers for technical looking pieces, for instance, or putting the highest level of craft on a t-shirt, done in agreau plongé, no less. Of late, she's pushing a general and apparent rejuvenation of the house's codes.
This season, it felt fresh rather than forced. The windbreakers, colourful parkas and elasticated-cuff trousers had energy and appeal. Nothing groundbreaking or challenging, that's for sure. Just superbly made updated classics, which is what Hermès stands for after all. The hanging laundry was just distracting visual noise.
From where aspirational customers are spending to Kering’s challenges and Richemont’s fashion revival, BoF’s editor-in-chief shares key takeaways from conversations with industry insiders in London, Milan and Paris.
BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks and Imran Amed, BoF founder and editor-in-chief, look back at the key moments of fashion month, from Seán McGirr’s debut at Alexander McQueen to Chemena Kamali’s first collection for Chloé.
Anthony Vaccarello staged a surprise show to launch a collection of gorgeously languid men’s tailoring, writes Tim Blanks.