Saturday evening marked her last fashion show for Hermès, yet nothing seemed to weigh on the shoulders of the models, who wore featherweight classics and ventured into the inimitable with effortless style. There, between cities and elsewhere, in the heart of a sumptuous winter, were reversible sheepskin parkas, sublime cashmere and silk turtlenecks with blurred floral patterns, as precisely crafted as they are airy. Fifty-nine silhouettes sketched with the ink of conviction, of a discipline that never excludes softness, of a comfort that does not mean disappearance or collapse, but rhymes with beautiful escapes, a levitating palette, between mists and cities, each material revealed by colour, as if in a kind of love at first sight made obvious. Think: a straight wool felt jacket, a black calfskin parka, a cotton raincoat, a mocha calfskin jumpsuit.
Each piece feels connected, like friends. From the first looks to the last, a straight coat in mirror crocodile, a double-breasted coat in water-repellent double cashmere, sophistication meets innovation, as seen in all these details, these materials – from spinnaker cloth to technical satin – that lighten life without diminishing it. The truest, most intimate version of everyday luxury, which the artistic director expresses in a few ideas: “Colour as punctuation, the reverse as beautiful as the front, gesture at the heart of craftsmanship, drawing as material.” The spirit of a time that beats to the rhythm of the heart, desires, secrets: false plains, role play, subversions, embroidered tennis stripes, selfish details, whether extra-wide pockets or silky linings printed with Brides de Gala. The guests gathered at the Palais Brogniart rose in ovation, while giant screens project images of so many Véroniques: across all seasons, the same, different, eternal.
