Véronique Nichanian takes her time, the time she needs to get it right. With a quiet and steady passion, she has been creating eternally elegant menswear looks at Hermès for more than 20 years. AnOther caught up with the designer during the recent Paris shows to discuss silhoettes and proportions for the autumn/winter 2011 Hermès man, her tenure at the luxury brand and the effects digital revolution.
Véronique, what’s new for next winter at Hermès?
The proportion of the jacket is a bit shorter, some trousers a bit wider or more fitted, not skinny though. I am not dressing 16-year-old boys but grown-up men. At the moment, I really love jersey and have worked it into jackets for this collection. What makes it really interesting, though, is the mix of the materials. I use wool for jackets that are made rainproof on the yarn, so that you get this special softness and are still protected from the weather; a double cashmere jacket, which feels like a cloud. A lot of cotton, too. It comes with a new attitude, cotton trousers, even in winter and combined with the big cashmere/silk scarves on men, which I like a lot. And I also looked into the motorcycle outfits I designed for Hermès 20 years ago, changed the proportions a little bit, and made them into a shearling overall.
Speaking of this time gap, what’s the concept behind your success, leading the menswear team at Hermès now for more than 20 years?
I think we are still happy after 20 years because I share a sensibility with the house. When Jean Louis Dumas asked me to start at Hermès I felt like being invited to join a family. From the beginning I always did a lot of research. The fabrics are my starting point and all the energy comes from there. I love the leather, the wools and the silks. I have this personality that is very focused on details, on the tiny differences. That’s my signature, I guess. Rather than doing big research trips, I go to the fabric fairs and I ask the manufacturers to do something special for me so that the materials are exclusive to us. A big change in materials technology made fabrics become much lighter over the years. A jacket is still a jacket, but when you feel it, when you put it on, you experience how different it is from a jacket that is 20 years old. People then sometimes ask me why I never started my own line, having all this experience, but there is no real need for me to do that, I don’t have any restrictions here. I can do what I want. It’s a dream job.
What would you say is the difference between luxury and quality?
You are right putting luxury versus quality. Now everybody is talking about luxury; luxury, that does not mean anything. If you put your name on a T-shirt that does not mean it is a luxury T-shirt. Everybody is a star, everybody is doing luxury. I am over it. At Hermès, since the beginning in 1837, we have been working on the quality of objects, on the clothes, and we like the idea of taking time to make things improve in the right way. My collections are made that they never go out of fashion, so that you can wear a jacket from this season with trousers from five years ago, or with a coat even older than that.
What impact is the digital revolution having on Hermès?
You mean that everybody is sitting in front of the screen watching the internet? It is interesting, but at Hermès we are talking about sensuality. Looking at a screen is the first step, but we expect the people to come and touch the objects we produce. That’s very important. On the other hand we use the electronic medium. We produced the Fingerskate video, which became a big hit on YouTube and shows everything very effectively and is fun to watch, too. You can speak to a large number of people really quickly over the Internet, but after that we want to give people time to discover it all. Everything is going faster and faster for everybody, but sometimes we need to slow down again. That’s real luxury, to slow down and take some time.
