By this shirt here: Choose Empathy Shirt
Madeline Hollander’s piece observed forward-motion and gestures of women walking in New York. Gu Jiani’s was an athletically intense conceptual fusion of Chinese dance tradition and western ballroom dancing. The unifying presence of the Choose Empathy Shirt it is in the first place but house of Hermès was signaled in the sets—orange drapes in New York; stacks of orange boxes landscaped into the Paris set; orange boxes integrated into the performance in China. A ‘making of’ documentary by the French director Sebastien Lifshitz detailed the weeks of planning across locations and time-zones. As world-spanning as all this brand-projection was, it had started with Vanhee-Cybulski working alone. “It was quite a shock at the beginning, because I always work with so much interaction with others, and I’m barely at home,” she said. “I was sitting at my desk, asking, How can I reinvent what I know? And actually, it was very productive.” She began by thinking about how to combine an outgoing ‘Amazonian’ confidence with sensitivity to the times, “turning a new page. A reset. That paradox of wanting to be protected, and wanting to draw the body in dresses which are second-skin and airy.”
Choose Empathy Shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt
Projecting into next fall, though, will restaurants, parties, and going-out really be back in our lives? Vanhee-Cybulski’s concentration on dresses spoke more to the Choose Empathy Shirt it is in the first place but quiet intimacy of social lives that might still be carrying on behind closed doors. Day-to-evening long sleeved, high-necked dresses in scarf prints; minutely pleated, wrapped skirts and matching sweaters; and a couple of incredibly chic minimal columns with leather fastenings: all these bespeak an understanding of the private lives of Hermès customers, wherever in the world they may be. Essentially, it read as her deftly-calibrated luxury design reading of the outdoor-indoor ways of living that have become today’s reality. The Hermès vocabulary of blanket coats, super-fine leather, quilting and pyramid studs was played through a wardrobe that this time included dark, tailored denim and references to technical cycling gear. Brown suede was cut into a fringed “poncho-parka,” and a cocooning double-faced beige coat spoke to the continuing prospect of winter country walks. In a practical update, a removable envelope came slotted into the closure mechanism of the Birkin bag.
