Tomorrow afternoon the world will meet a new Hermès, courtesy of creative director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski—but that’s not all, it will also meet a new design talent. After holding lead design positions at The Row, from 2011 to 2014, and Céline, from 2008 to 2011, Vanhee-Cybulski’s first outing as the major creative force behind a collection will happen at Hermès and on the international stage. No pressure.
If her résumé is telling, she will bring a sense of refined, understated elegance to the French house, not unlike that of her predecessor Christophe Lemaire, who helmed the house from 2010 to 2014. What Vanhee-Cybulski is also likely to deliver, though, is a sense of the shocking, something that Hermès has lacked since the days of Jean Paul Gaultier’s or Martin Margiela’s reigns, from 2003 to 2010, and 1997 to 2003, respectively. From her time at Céline, The Row, and Maison Martin Margiela before that, Vanhee-Cybulski has surely learned that true luxury doesn’t just mean fancy materials; it means subversion. Phoebe Philo nails it season after season at Céline, with her fur-lined Birkenstocks, boob-print sneakers, and this Fall’s Mary Poppins-sized purses. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen got the hang of it at The Row, too—really, what’s more perversive than an ostrich-skin backpack?
The house of Hermès, long synonymous with the utmost in luxury, could benefit from a little shot in the arm. And while many read Vanhee-Cybulski’s appointment as a safe choice, a Frenchwoman returning to a French house, she has the opportunity to invigorate the label with a smart take on femininity that her male predecessors lacked. Look around the Hermès website or its stores and you’ll find a sense of fun, of subversion, and of the unexpected—it is the house with bags named after both the eternal ingenue Jane Birkin and the original princess with an edge Grace Kelly, after all. Let’s see if Vanhee-Cybulski brings some of that complex beauty back with her debut collection tomorrow.
