Paris Fashion Week

Hermès, Spring/Summer '09 (scroll down to read the review)
Hermès
With ponchos, Stetsons, plenty of fringing and a sunset backed runway covered in sand and planted with cacti, Jean Paul Gaultier took the Hermès gals on a new travelling adventure. He stopped off somewhere between New Mexico and Texas but ended up back at 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré; only Hermès could produce work like this.

It oozed quality not only in the leathers, like feather-light lambskin that moved like silk, the Barénia calfskin with its natural grain and the watersnake jackets but in the detail, stitching ( one row of punching plus one handstitched row) and finish that was unmistakably Hermès (who else would do hand stitched leather covered pebbles as weights on the Stetsons?)

Straps and belts, with a nod to the harness, snaked under backless dresses or through Sahran jackets and around waists and wrists, like the Cape Cod watch.

Alongside mannish staples like the trench, the blazer and a new jean top stitched in rouge Hermès and finished with a printed foulard selvage, he introduced poncho inspired dresses, cardigans and shirts that were effortlessly chic and were along way from their humble roots. Pleated saloon dresses in Mexican stripes provided a bolt of colour to a palette otherwise dominated by sand, straw and tobacco.