There’s luxury. And then there’s Hermès-level luxury.
Little needs to be said of Hermès and its commitment to craft and its own heritage. For the Hermès autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection, it was a thorough display of both, wrapped within a veneer of understated elegance.
It’s a testament to artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s almost nine-year-long experience at the storied luxury house. The collection was succinct and to-the-point without alluding to a pseudo-intellectual idea that perhaps could have given the collection an abstract context.
No. The Hermès autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection was simply an exercise of rich, luxurious fabrications and techniques topped with refreshed takes of house signatures. And quite honestly, sometimes, that’s all that’s needed in a collection—a sense of dependable chicness.
The overall monochromatic styling was genius. Not only did it immediately lend a sophisticated air—even for the collection’s seemingly minimal ensembles—but drew further attention to the details that riddled every look. Sensual textures took precedence as cashmere and alpaca wools immediately stood out for their subtle differences against the collection’s use of high-sheen fabrications. Leathers too made such beautiful contact with contrasting textures, while displaying such ease and lightness.
Equestrian elements—a truly synonymous part of everything Hermès—were effortlessly incorporated. The collection’s headgear of the season was a satin riding cap done in the collection’s warm palette of reds, browns and blacks, and reimagined almost as a hybrid of a conventional baseball cap and a jockey riding cap. Knee-high boots in tone-on-tone shades of suedes too reflected an equestrian sensibility, worn with every single look down the runway.
Once again, the Birkin was given a harness. It’s a smart attachment that changes the vibe of the beloved classic but also allows for a more varied wear—look 46’s all-black ensemble was punctuated with one carried crossbody. It’s also a bit of a casual handling of the bag that we’re increasingly becoming more aware of. The Birkin might be an investment of a bag but it doesn’t really require such precious, white-glove treatment.
There’s an overall ease that’s read throughout each and every look in the autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection. And perhaps that’s reflective of the kind of confidence that Vanhee-Cybulski has on her direction for Hermès. It’s not that there’s little ingenuity or creativity—clearly that’s hardly the case—but rather, a know-how of the Hermès identity and where to push it aesthetically.
View the full Hermès autumn/winter 2023 womenswear collection in the gallery below.
