At Paris Fashion Week, Hermes Shows Its Subversive Side With Leather

Day six of the Fall Winter 2024 Paris Fashion Week was approximately the 13th day of precipitation in the City of Lights. Despite this outdoor moisture, Hermès brought the rain inside the la Garde républicaine, their show residence in recent history. Using a mechanical hydraulic system and installing a drain system, the telltale drips pre-show hinted at the oncoming deluge that flanked the two main sections of the runway which the models did laps around as the show began.

Show notes titled "The Rider" described an urban woman ready to brave the elements in a city atop a bike or elsewhere atop a horse. If anyone can make getting dampened by the rain look chic, it's Hermès. Usually, cowhides don't make for appropriate wet weather gear, but in this case, the leathergoods savants have treated the skins to be water-resilient.

Creative director Nadège Vanhee proved this season that her Hermès woman is tough enough to brave those elements and remain put together. Plenty of the head-to-toe leather looks were zipped and stitched closer to the body, exceptionally provocative in bright red, and when festooned with 'lozenge-like' studding that gave this urban-cool biker chick a masculine edge. The studding appeared on slim skirts, pinafore dresses, sexy ribbed knits (a Hermes crop top!), and topper jackets in classic black and olive green. This being Hermes, her moto was embossed with saddle design. Her brazen tendencies were cemented through the 1981 song "Never Say Never" by Romeo Void, most commonly known for its direct sexually suggestive lyrics.

The Moto jacket was just a slice of this calm, cool, collected city slicker's outerwear; copped bombers, meticulously cut riding jackets, boxy car coats, and belted trenches appeared in leather and robust twills.

This Hermès woman holds private thoughts and her bag close to the vest, clutching medium-sized carryalls and clutches, often embossed, sideways, or wearing small pouch-like bags tied to the waist. She stomps through the wet streets with sturdy boots made for all kinds of rides. It almost made you wish for the Paris rain to stick around. As the luxury goods firm announced plans to increase prices by 8 to 9 percent globally in 2024 and recently reported sales of roughly $3.62 billion for the last three months of 2023, Hermès probably doesn't mind a little water when it's getting soaked in money.

Another Parisian brand, Nina Ricci, showed its racier side the day before in its third collection designed by Harris Reed, whose work with Victorian and 18th-century motifs, outsize head gear, fish-tail hemlines, ribbons and bows, and Haute Couture-techniques leanings made him a perfect fit to carry on the flirty yet demure and feminine DNA of the house.

Additionally, Reed is lauded for his gender-fluid approach to design and size inclusivity—the former more evidenced in his namesake collection—for adding a size range up to 14, with select styles up to 18.

For Fall Winter 2024, Reed channeled the heyday of Nina Ricci in the Sixties, as seen in an archive photo. "I was very much inspired by an archival image by Richard Avedon of the actress Suzy Parker wearing Nina Ricci on Avenue Montaigne in 1962. She's dressed in a classic tweed tailored dress with a fur-lined hood and gloves, but her arms are bare. She looks so self-assured and iconic in this image; I wanted to explore this effortless glamour, what I would like to see women wearing on the streets of Paris today," he said in a release.

Practically speaking, this meant sharp tailoring on tuxedo jackets, wide lapels and cigarette pants, lace bodysuits, embossed croc leather bralettes, bustiers, miniskirts, and pantsuits plus Playboy Bunny-style rompers gave Reed's Ricci gal a darker, sexy side. However, feminine leanings were evidenced in sheer silk ensembles with trailing scarves, new takes on the infamous Crocus suit as twin-set knitted suits, and enormous graphic bows and apple motifs fashioned in collaboration with jeweler Hugo Kreit. Signature headgear appeared as faux-shearling hoods and neat pillbox hats.

Reed may be just the answer for Nina Ricci, as the last two creative director cycles left the brand waning. As parent company Puig grew by 40% in 2022 to €3.620 billion and is expected to reach a turnover of €4.5 billion by 2025, his mandate is clear.

Casablanca, an contemporary luxury brand with elevated retro athleisure leanings founded in 2018 by Charaf Tajer, showed its Fall Winter 2024 collection on the women's calendar for the second time earlier in the week. The female offerings are newer, and most US retailers carry only its menswear, but the brand is working to cement its presence with the ladies.

Tajer's 'Venus as a Boy' collection looked to ancient Greece, reimagining the goddess Venus, though the title pulls itself from a song by Bjork. According to Tajer and his art director, Steve Grimes, the title suggests, the Casablanca man firmly believes in beauty.

Indeed, the most potent visual pull of the collection shown at the Cirque d'Hiver—with the now popular-with-the-fashion-set seated choreography troupe Murmuration directed by Sadeck Berrabah adding to the performance—was the aquamarine to teal ombré looks on the guys fashioned as an overcoat or a suit that featured an apron slash cumberband overlay inspired by Grecian draping or the Casablanca logo crystal-embellished styles as a men's sleeveless shirt or miniskirt which looked great when tempered with sportswear styles such as track pants or a 1960s-style boxy zip jacket.

The sheer trend, evidenced in wispy, slightly embellished styles for everyone, check the on-trend box for the brand and will perform at retail, as will the brand's tennis-inspired looks now with Grecian column motifs, which never disappoint. Slinky semi-sheer knits for the ladies recalled a toga with a hint of Tom Ford's Gucci.

A series of jackets was made in collaboration with artist Jeff Hamilton and were fun to look at. Naturally, another partnership was with Ancient Greek Sandals, who imagined a gladiator shoe in silver and worn over modern knee-high socks.

Overall, it was a strong, commercially viable collection, though it's clear the men's looks are still the stars of the brand; perhaps imagining Venus as the woman she was is in order going forward.