PANTIN, France – As a child, Nadège Vanhee was discouraged from wearing red: It would match her hair, she was told. But since her first collection for Hermès in 2015, she has embraced the colour, using it like another inky black. Sensuous and radical.

In 20 seasons, Vanhee has gradually reinvented Hermès’ ready-to-wear collections, working from the inside out without gimmicks or parody. There are no celebrity muses, rather, inspirations roam from urban to country landscapes, from horses to motorbikes. Earth tones, taupy greys and buttery beige become newly desirable alongside her signature reds.

Construction meets fluidity, starting with a deep respect and understanding of material. Then comes the cut, with volumes informed by gestures: “Zipping a collar, a skirt, buckling an overcoat, tightening the cords on a rain jacket,” Vanhee says. The action comes before the image.

Born in 1978 in northern France, Vanhee made her debut at Martin Margiela, then at Celine under Phoebe Philo, before joining The Row in New York. In 2014, she was named artistic director of Hermès women’s ready-to-wear.

Vanhee’s collections are discreet but remarkable, anchored in a brand history that she seeks neither to erase nor to reduce to mere signifiers. From silk twill to stirrup belts, each element of the Hermès DNA is present, but metamorphosed, as in her Autumn/Winter 2025 biker jacket whose stitching echoes the construction of a saddle.

Vanhee met The Business of Fashion in Hermès’ Pantin studio, where colours and craftsmanship maintain a fusional relationship. Work on collections begins years in advance, as part of a dialogue across Hermès sixteen métiers including shoes, bags, silk and, since 2020, beauty. Not to mention the upstream work that goes into maintaining Hermès’ legendary standards for product development and quality.

At Hermès, Vanhee returns a certain grandeur to French ready-to-wear. Her faith in the power craftspeople, united by shared vocabulary and values, recalls a bygone era.

And yet rigorous design and production are mixed with a rebellious spirit, rejuvenating the notion of feminine elegance with lighter, more body-conscious silhouettes for a woman in motion.

In her Spring/Summer 2025 collection set to be shown during Paris Fashion Week on Saturday, colours inspired by the house’s iconic leathers are recast as paints in an artist’s palette. Skin tones like ebony, chestnut, camel and gold are punctuated with vibrant hues like bougainvillaea pink.

The collection, dedicated to the artist’s studio as a space of creation, reinforces and supports an increasingly singular point of view.

Laurence Benäim: A word to describe Hermès’ Spring/Summer 2025 collection? What was your starting point?

Nadège Vanhee: Sensual. For me, sensuality means skin, the epidermis. The flesh tones in the collection recall leather, evoking a sense of touch. There’s a very carnal idea of summer; the body is revealed. There’s transparency and lightness, while fluid knits express a symbiosis with the body.

I started with the artist’s studio as a place to celebrate creation. Looking at artists, notably women. I thought about studio uniforms, and how an apron tied around the hips means something different in the context of the atelier. An evocation of freedom, with pockets.

At Hermès, all the colours have something to do with the skin. I didn’t want to stifle the collection by using the colours of uniforms, but rather to uncover their sensual aspect.

You’ve been designing Hermès’ women’s ready-to-wear collections for 10 years now. How have your collections changed?

I prefer to speak of evolution rather than rupture. When I started out, I was familiar with leather, but I had kept it at arm’s length. Here, I discovered a vocabulary, a way of working with this living, singular material. A methodology combined with a sense of respect.

It took time to build the team. Today there are 17 of us in the ready-to-wear studio, and each collection is created in synergy with the company’s other métiers, starting with shoes, because a silhouette without shoes is impossible. Then I work with the leather goods and silk teams. It takes at least two years of fine-tuning.

The famous “temps Hermès...”

It’s the time it takes to combine expertise in function and aesthetics. It’s a rhythm that leads me to work further upstream, with a sense of teamwork pushed to the extreme.

The jeans in this collection were washed, softened, and woven in Japan over a year ago.

What drives you forward in your work?

What I’m looking for is beauty. It’s a quest. An aesthetic emotion that touches on sensuality — that’s what keeps me going.

I love exploring the colours of leather associated with the earth, with nature. The older I get, the more I realise that I was influenced by childhood visits to Algeria: Algiers, the Hoggar desert, the Aurès mountains.

Then there’s updating a living heritage, creating a lineage between the art of the tailor and the saddler. And always provoking surprises, with more transparency and lightness.

Hermès’ equestrian roots are always present. How do you go about incorporating the equestrian spirit?

Equestrian references are a starting point, not a goal. It’s about finding elements in the archives that can be transposed analytically rather than literally.

Your obsession?

My mission, my vision is to reveal the assertiveness of the Hermès woman: the inventiveness, the creativity, this spirit of research, discovery, the magnetism of a presence. It’s these values, these assets that seduce and charm.

Every season we reshuffle the deck and come up with new combinations. The aim is to propose a vision that doesn’t crush individuality and manages to go beyond the clichés of androgyny. To take a classic garment — a trench coat, a blouson — and make it desirable today. To make a garment as beautiful as a bag.

Celebrating an attitude, references to women I’m drawn to like [photographer and actress] Alice Springs, and other inspiring pioneering figures.

Which bag, if you had to choose one?

That’s difficult. I’d say the Plume, the Trim or the Kelly.

How do you reconcile the notion of fashion with the Hermès ethos of timeless style?

Style and fashion cross and uncross. The Hermès style is recognisable, and it feeds off fashion to meet new needs, new functions, new points of view. Claude Brouet, Christophe Lemaire, Martin Margiela, Jean-Paul Gaultier: each brought his own identity, whether in prints or shapes. But the company is bigger than fashion.

I’m very lucky to work for a company whose heritage goes back six generations. It’s not cumbersome. It’s a story of cut, function, discipline, and seduction. It’s a special relationship between the craftsman who assembles the garment, and the person who’s going to wear it, for life. That’s the magic recipe.

What do you see as the brand’s greatest strengths?

The strength of this brand lies in its deeply rooted values. It’s a discipline. We’re talking about hyper-demanding quality, transmission, and style. Then there’s audacity, a search for playfulness and lightness. This company is a beehive of ideas in perpetual proliferation.

In my collections, I dig deeper into this research, combining it with the ideals of movement and sensuality.

In recent years, I think more than just an evolution there’s been a clarification of what Hermès fashion is. It’s as if I were an amplifier.

Any words of advice?

Free yourself to assert yourself, leave space for intuition. I was 19 with a literary degree, I decided to go into design. As a redhead, I was already used to getting some snide remarks, to being ostracised for being slightly different. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to wear red; I was told it didn’t go with my hair. Today, I collect red dresses. They’re like characters.

Editors’ Note: This conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

PARIS — Tracey Emin’s tiny bronze bird perched high on a pole at the very centre of the Loewe show space on Friday morning. Jonathan Anderson thought of the sculpture as the analogue of a different way to look at the world, in this case, a literal bird’s eye view. It’s something he’d been considering over the last few seasons at Loewe, which he called exercises in reduction: “Putting out ideas, like archetypes that you believe in.” He said that sometimes he wanted to challenge people’s viewpoints, wanted people to wonder, how you do you wear that? Or, how do you sit on it? Or, how do you deal with it Reasonable enough questions when you consider the archetypes he offered in his latest Loewe collection.

Foremost among them was a huge circular hoop skirt, draped in pale floral georgette. “Kind of like ‘40s silk,” was Anderson’s description. He’d got the idea from prewar crinoline sets, which he’d refined. The featherlight fabric was weighed with a fine chain so it undulated while the hoop created a different movement altogether. From the vantage point of Tracey’s all-seeing bird, it might almost look like they were hovering, not unlike the leather UFO skirts-cum-tutus he showed two weeks ago in London. Also kissing cousins with the mini-shifts that were a key component of that show were the long-sleeved sequinned minidresses Anderson showed for Loewe, even mini-er here. If London was Twiggy, Paris was Edie. The dresses were the result of some complicated-sounding experiment with 3D knitting which apparently allowed the sequins to sit flat like scales. You get the feeling that is often how things happen in the Anderson atelier. “Experiments.” A couple of the little dresses had the iridescence of shells that had been crushed and mounted on georgette, so they shimmered in movement.

Another archetype was the “tourist art” of the souvenir t-shirt. Anderson was very taken with the news that previously unheard music from Mozart was recently discovered and “dropped” the way Beyoncé, Drake or Gaga might release a new album. He printed Mozart — and Chopin and Bach — on a t-shirt of white feathers. And Manet’s Little Drummer Boy, and Van Gogh’s Irises and Sunflowers too. It was a high/low moment: the feathers redolent of old couture techniques, the music and art expressions of high culture … and the t-shirt a t-shirt. Anderson compared great composers or artists to rock star pinups. “It’s like when you go to a museum or concert, it’s experiential, you want to take the moment home with you.” He said he occasionally used to wish he was a painter or a musician, because art and music last. “But the more I do this job, the more I realise fashion lasts too. Garments make you remember things.”

There was a ring attached to the invitation, engraved Loewe 1846, the year the company was founded. Obviously a ring is a circle, like the hoops on Anderson’s skirts, like the shape of his show space on Friday. Anderson was thinking in circles, but he was also thinking of the ring as a symbol of commitment. “The last few seasons, I’ve been into refinement, rather than moving on,” he said. “As a designer you are always looking to the future, and it sometimes takes a long time for the audience to catch up.” A perfect illustration of that sentiment showed in the new collection as a navy suit matching a trim jacket to a pair of the voluminous trousers scooped up to one side that Anderson’s been showing lately. It was a stand-out look, even amidst the much showier silken hoop skirts and feather T’s. “It’s a weird accomplishment,” Anderson said with some pride. “Loewe’s not actually been very good at tailoring for a long time, but we’ve been able to build the craft and manufacturing to get it right.”

There was a intriguing sidebar to Friday’s presentation in the stellar front row of Anderson’s peers. Sarah Burton, Nicolas Di Felice, Pieter Mulier, Adrian Appiolaza and Kris Van Assche all showed up. Could be a simple case of their curiosity getting the better of them all at exactly the same moment.  But that’s nothing compared to what mine is doing.

Speaking of people who’ve been the subject of industry speculation as the game of musical chairs warms up again, Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli gave less than a second’s thought to quiet luxury and said, “Meh!  Let’s do loud luxury.” But his mission was more complicated than that. As far as press and clients are concerned, he’s the Couture Kid, but he wants — needs — to impress on the world that his vision has a commercial viability above the haute, and beyond the red carpet. Roseberry has restored a sense of enduring preciousness to Schiaparelli. “People don’t buy Schiap, they collect it,” Bergdorf Goodman’s Linda Fargo told him. That gave him the idea for this new ready-to-wear collection: “Future Vintage.” He imagined what women bought now being passed to their daughters and granddaughters.

At the same time, Roseberry insisted he wanted to turn the page, keep the collectible desirability of the couture but add ease and effortlessness. He spent the last gasp of summer in Ibiza. The afterglow lingered. “I want everything to feel like you could pull it out of your suitcase. We have not done that before.” A man’s white button-down, a piqué polo and a tank top opened the show, and they certainly sounded like breezy summery staples. But Roseberry Schiapped them, made hourglass bodysuits out of them. He pointed out that all the tailoring in the collection was unconstructed, and the only embroidery was in the last three dresses, where clusters of handpainted sequins in floral motifs turned the models into radiant naiads, but still, Roseberry’s irrepressible bone-marrow maximalism meant that the overall impression was hardly subtle. One look, a zipped jacket with batwing sleeves in gleaming eelskin, had all the grandeur of a Poiret opera coat. And what might pass for his version of a tracksuit made me chuckle: a jacket in ribbed neoprene with even bigger batwing sleeves paired with matching harem pants. Extravanganza!

Roseberry insisted the collection was rooted in ready-to-wear techniques. “I did not want this to look or feel like couture, I want to make a clean break.” He mentioned pieces in salt-washed, over-dyed cotton, which sounded humble enough until Natasha Poly appeared in a stonking great trench coat. I’m exaggerating for effect, of course. Not everything was scaled up like that, but Roseberry can’t help himself. He also loves an effect. So the nautical stripes were intarsia-ed with a trompe l’oeil sarong, and a little rib knit tank ombré-ed away into sequins. And the scuffs (flats being a new development) already had sandy toes, another trompe effect. Roseberry has always taken an unholy delight in fashion’s (im)possibilities. He’s a true heir to Elsa Schiaparelli in his appreciation of the sartorial surreal. Here, for instance, there was a hyper-formal floor-sweeping tuxedo coat worn with nothing but Schiap’s new-signature anatomically correct foot-shaped slip-ons (a look that was followed closely by Vittoria Cerretti as a Bond Girl, but that one I get!). Pull that out of your suitcase.

The author has shared a Podcast.You will need to accept and consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies by our third-party partners (including: YouTube, Instagram or Twitter), in order to view embedded content in this article and others you may visit in future.

Subscribe to the BoF Podcast here.

Background

Alessandro Michele’s whimsical, bold vision as creative director of Gucci revitalised the brand, turning it into a cultural juggernaut. Now, he’s attempting to do the same at Valentino, bringing his signature blend of nostalgia, craftsmanship, and artistic risk-taking to reimagine the Roman couture house.

“This place has such a specific story,” he says. “That name, Valentino — it’s a real name, with real life, with real love. There is always Valentino somewhere with me.”

This week on The BoF Podcast, BoF founder and editor-in-chief Imran Amed sits down with Michele to discuss his evolution as a designer, his deep connection to Valentino’s heritage, and the importance of passion and obsession in achieving creative success.

Key Insights

• As creative director, Michele said that the weight of Valentino founder Valentino Garavani’s legacy continues to inspire and guide him, even in the smallest details of his work. “When I’m working by myself, with the people of the studio, with Jacopo, there is always Valentino somewhere with me. … There is always an open conversation with him because I can feel the things talking to me, through the dresses, the walls,” he said.
• Contemplating the meaning of success, Michele emphasises the importance of remaining true to himself as a designer. “It’s more moving left and right, rather than up and down. Success is when you are in the right place, when you’re free to be yourself,” he said. His approach to fashion is personal and deeply intuitive, and he protects his creativity by concentrating on his own creative fulfilment rather than trying to please everyone. “I don’t need to be someone else. I think a big designer or a good designer needs to be himself.”
• Michele approaches his work with a deep understanding that creativity comes with taking risks, both in life and in fashion. He views risk as an essential element of growth and evolution in his designs. “You are taking beautiful risks, but they are risks,” he said. “I like myself also for the things I did wrong. Now that I’m a big boy, I like the Alessandro who did so many wrong things.”
• For Michele, the magic of fashion and creating a collection lies in the uncertainty. “You put all the ingredients inside, and it’s going to be real only when the first person starts to walk on the catwalk. That’s the magic,” he said. “You feel that you were pregnant, but now the baby has a proper life and you can no longer be in control. It’s outside and it’s gonna walk by himself or herself.”

Additional Resources