In Shanghai, Hermès conjures a ‘cosmopolitan explorer’ for its one-off show on the Huangpu River

Almost a year to the day, Nadège Vanhée, artistic director of Hermès’ womenswear collections, travelled from Paris to New York to show what she called ‘The Second Chapter’ of her A/W 2024 womenswear collection in an ephemeral showspace at Pier 36 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Having spent a large part of her career in the city – the French designer worked as design director of The Row prior to her appointment at Hermès in 2015 – the show paid ode to New York’s ‘pace, energy and optimism’ (true to the city that never sleeps, the venue transformed into a night-long party post-show).

This evening, in a muggy Shanghai, Vanhée sought to replicate the same energy with a one-off show presented at North Bund Bay on the bank of the Huangpu River. The city’s futuristic skyline – a glimmering mirage of Blade Runner-esque glass towers and neon lights – provided the backdrop, cleverly revealed through a vast line of floor-to-ceiling shutters which swung open at the show’s start. The structure, which the house called ‘ephemeral and modular’, was constructed specially for the event and, like in New York, doubled as a party venue after the models exited the runway.

The show itself was the sophomore outing for Vanhée’s ‘The Second Chapter’ concept, seeing her present part two of her A/W 2025 womenswear collection which was first shown in Paris earlier this year. There, on a spiralling runway strewn with soil, a stomping cast of models channelled the designer’s vision of toughness: ‘sculptural, resilient, seductive… [the woman] moves forward, never looks back. She has everything she needs.’

In Shanghai, her protagonist’s journey continued – albeit with a new frisson of eclecticism and play. Drawing inspiration from the city’s fusion of ‘heritage and innovation’, the protagonist was out of the French soil and onto the metropolis’ packed-out streets. As such, looks were cleverly layered and stacked up with belongings as one might when traversing an unfamiliar cityscape – from leather water bottle holders to colourful sweaters tied around the waist, or bags slung across the chest (a riposte to the more ladylike connotations of Hermès’ classic handbags).

Vanhée deemed the look one of a ‘cosmopolitan explorer’, its juxtapositions – between toughness and sensuality, intellect and playfulness – typical of her oeuvre at the French house. Indeed, like in New York, the shift of scenery seemed to allow Vanhée new grounds for self expression – particularly in the collection’s styling – whereby she proposed a rich amalgam of colour and print, while garments were hiked up at the sleeves or mid-transformation (several of the looks had hybrid or modular elements, designed to adjust to their wearer). There was even a glittering boot, which refracted the glow of the Shanghai evening, and a pair of headphones, as if the model was about to step off the runway and into the night.

One inspiration, she noted, was the braid – a house symbol derived from equestrian plaits (Hermès began life as a harness maker in 1837, and horseriding and its ephemera have been hallmarks of the house ever since). Specifically, those found on the Dressage Tressage silk carré by Virginie Jamin, which became twisting motifs across the collection – all the way down to the silk lining of a coat. Vanhée said she was thinking about the act of braiding, of weaving together different cultural influences in a process which takes time and patience – an apt metaphor for her work with the Hermès artisans, and a symbol of her desire to perfect a wardrobe for the contempoary women, wherever she might be in the world.

‘I’m really just observing different types of women and their needs,’ Vanhée told Wallpaper* in 2024. ‘I like to go outside my comfort zone and ask: what is the life of a woman in Hong Kong? A woman in Sacramento? One advantage of our civilisation is that we have this super-globalisation: we can see, we can go, we can check. We are no longer locked in our little ivory towers.’

hermes.com