As Véronique Nichanian, the patient and sovereign guardian of Hermès menswear for thirty seven years, prepares to leave the stage, a deep and solemn emotion moves through the evening like a slow ripple beneath vaulted ceilings. What for so long had been an almost monastic appointment at the Palais d’Iéna has shifted, at the hour when daylight withdraws, to the Palais Brongniart, transformed into a vast ceremony of remembrance. There, in the golden half light, gratitude seems suspended in the very air one breathes. It radiates from the assembled faces, from the well known figures who crossed her path, as much as from the unseen artisans who walked beside her in quiet fidelity.
Outside, on the Place de la Bourse, the crowd chants another name, that of Travis Scott, the sole rap infused contribution to the Hermès fashion narrative, voices hurled into the modern night shaped by the vision of LV. Inside, however, it is Véronique Nichanian’s name that circulates, discreet yet persistent, like an ancient breath threading its way through every conversation. One need only raise one’s eyes to the ceilings to feel the vertigo of a chapter drawing to a close. Later, when the final silhouette has crossed this last runway, the suspended screens will descend slowly, like curtains of memory, restoring yesterday’s salutations. But for now, the artistic director still gathers one final breath and offers it to the Hermès man she has shaped.
The garments that envelop him bear the precision of cuts matured over time, the depth of carefully measured colours, those neutrals chosen with mastery and illuminated by pigments conceived as confidences. The materials speak an ancient and assured language, a silent knowledge passed on without flourish. Everything here belongs to a grammar of elegance that never falters.
The coats, upright and proud, assert their structure through a double collar, like a discreet form of armour. The leathers are rich without ostentation, the trousers trace an exact line, and the generous knits protect the man from the whims of the sky as much as from those of the age. Thus is composed a wardrobe that fulfils, with the highest sophistication, its primary mission: to serve life, and to serve it with nobility. It is this essential, silent and beloved function that I recognise here.
