Véronique Nichanian Celebrates 36 Years With Hermès
The artistic director of Hermès menswear looks back on her storied history with the iconic French maison.
The story of Véronique Nichanian and Hermès is a love story. Since 1988, she has been the leader of menswear at Hermès. Season after season, Nichanian’s collections exude Hermès’s signature elegance, charm, allure, and cosmopolitan attitude. After studying at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, Nichanian started her career at Nino Cerruti. Twelve years later, the French designer’s life was changed when Jean-Louis Dumas, then president of Hermès, gave her a mission: "Manage the man of Hermès as a small business; you have carte blanche.”
This year marks Nichanian’s 36th with Hermès. Nichanian sat down with L’OFFICIEL to discuss her longevity, her decade-spanning relationship with the brand, her passion for menswear, and her memories of working with the maison.
L'OFFICIEL: What does Hermès mean to you?
VÉRONIQUE NICHANIAN: Hermès, first of all, is the freedom to create, and then it is the craftsmanship. That sense of humanity pervades the whole maison and unites all the departments. It is an extraordinary universe of craftsmanship. For me and Hermès, this meeting between craftsmanship and modernity is fundamental. There is also freedom in being able to reimagine what our contemporary house is by investigating the extraordinary past of Hermès. I have fallen in love with this maison over the years.
L’O: Beautiful love stories last for a long time; your story has lasted for 36 years...
VN: I never imagined that it would last so long. For me it was an immediate but unplanned love. I am a person with enthusiasm and positivity, and the joy of being able to create that has accompanied me over the years has helped to keep alive, to enrich, to nourish this conversation with Hermès.
L’O: How do you work on a collection? What is the starting point, the inspiration that guides you and helps you to create and progress?
VN: I like to tell a story: Each collection, in part, continues the story of the previous one. I can say that each season is a letter of the same vocabulary. But at the same time, each season tries to show the male wardrobe from a different point, trying to interpret the male desires the following season.
I like to tell a story: Each collection, in part, continues the story of the previous one.
L’O: How do you marry the seasonality of fashion with the evergreen philosophy of Hermès?
VN: Every season, I try to interpret the men’s wardrobe with something a little different, exploring textile [contradictions]. That is by mixing extremely beautiful, extremely natural fabrics with futuristic technology, and trying to read the great emblematic elements of the masculine wardrobe from a completely contemporary and new perspective. This is what I like and what I can do at Hermès. Clothes have a life of their own that can cross time. Before I arrived, durability and longevity were among the main points of the maison. My job is to ensure that these fundamental values are respected. Creating clothes that are well made because we pay attention to the way they are made, to the excellent materials that make them up. Today we live in an age that pays so much attention to everything that is sustainable: I was raised so simply because this is the philosophy of Hermès: For personal and moral ethics we do not waste anything, and we create quality objects intended to be stored [for] a long time. This is the DNA of Hermès.
L’O: What do you think made Jean-Louis Dumas [then president of Hermes] decide to enlist you in the creative family of Hermès?
VN: I think he was intrigued by the work I was doing with Nino, the passion and respect for the handmade. I love fabrics; I love materials. I had a great teacher and a good school: Hermès is a maison of subjects, it’s a design maison, it’s a maison of color.
L’O: What is your first memory of your adventure with Hermès?
VN: My first memory is funny because it was Jean-Louis Dumas who called me on the phone. I thought it was a joke... I never thought that Hermès could be interested in me. I was incredulous. To prove that he really was the president of the maison, [he] invited me for breakfast here on the terrace of the maison..
L’O: And when you met, how did it go?
VN: He won me over with his vision of the maison: he had such a clear, precise, and innovative project in mind that I was captivated.
L’O: After this first meeting you started to create your vision for Hermès and presented it to Dumas... What guided you in building your design mood board?
VN: I said only one thing to Monsieur Dumas: my dream was and is to make clothes that are objects destined to last through time, like the Birkin or the Kelly [bags] my mother had. Like the scarves my mother and grandmother had. I was born in Paris, and having iconic objects like this is an important generational tradition. I tried to replicate this idea in the male wardrobe, with objects that can be passed on through time.
L’O: How would you define the Hermès style for men?
VN: It’s hard for me to describe it, but my aesthetic world tells a mood made up of color and silhouette, proportions and refinement. But at the same time, for me, clothing is first of all function, it’s practicality, it’s comfort, it’s lightness because modernity today is to be light, is to travel light: the man wants a suitcase that accompanies him having all the clothes he needs without the weight of things, the weight of life. Today we have to work to build really chic clothes that, at the same time, give comfort, lightness, sensuality, and refinement.
L’O: If you had to define the Hermès man in a few words, which words would you choose?
VN: I am convinced that there is no Hermès man, but there are Hermès men, because I like men who have different ages, sizes, nationalities, skin color. It’s their personality that interests me, so I never created an icon in my head. But I believe that the men of Hermès have some common denominators. A sense of humor that leads them not to take themselves too seriously. They have the ability to recognize beautiful things: a beautiful object, a good wine, a beautiful fabric, a well-made garment. They have a great sensitivity and a certain openness to the world, to different cultures. The Hermès man is intellectually curious, in the sense that he is open to the world, to the discovery of the new and himself. And that makes him charming, attractive.
My dream was and is to make clothes that are objects destined to last through time, like the Birkin or the Kelly [bags] my mother had.
L’O: Are there any pieces that you consider the cornerstones of your silhouette? What pieces are fundamental to a man’s wardrobe?
VN: There has been an evolution in my work but also in the male silhouettes themselves. There are collections that I preferred to others, but it’s as if they were all my children... I can’t choose. I can say that it makes me proud to meet people on the street, at the airport or in restaurants, who wear my clothes. It’s as if I suddenly see my thoughts take shape in reality.
L’O: Have you always wanted to be a designer?
VN: In high school I was a bit rebellious; I didn’t want to be like the others. So I tried to put my personal touch in what we were supposed to wear. In Paris there is the market of Saint-Pierre where I would go to buy fabrics with which I did my experiments. When I had the chance to work with Nino a dream came true: I was young and he explained the fabrics, the textures. He taught me a trade; it was a formidable school because Nino was a very demanding teacher: he was obsessed with the search for the best. And today, with my team, I act in the same way.
L’O: What is your relationship with the past? Do you work with archives a lot?
VN: Hermès has extraordinary archives for accessories, and I find that it is very interesting everything that has been done in the past. But we must look to the future; we must think about tomorrow. This is also the role of the creative: to propose something that no one has imagined or seen. I find that people browsing the archives work more on marketing than on creation: it will work to secure turnover for the brand but does not meet what is the customer’s desire. To be honest, in 36 years I have been twice in the archives of Hermès.
L’O: How do you incorporate your creative vision in each season?
VN: Everything starts from the matter that becomes the main element of the story. A matter that must be created and shaped with joy and a little fun. I am still lucky enough to do an extraordinary job that allows me to have fun every day: I can draw to create the new. There are so many people who get bored or do things because they have to. So, frankly, I can only thank Hermès for allowing me to have fun for 36 years.
