The long-term artistic director of Hermès Men’s World has perfected her craftsmanship, designing clothes that are simple and meticulous.

To complement this introduction, Toronto-based artist Kris Knight painted a portrait of the fashion designer called "Véronique Nichanian" (2021), specially painted for T. Credit... oil on paper, provided by the artist. Image Credit: Olivier Metzger

"You know," said Véronique Nichanian, "if I was 20, I would dye it green or pink." It was a warm June afternoon in Paris, and the sun made the roofs of limestone buildings in the city look like It is soaked in gold, and we are sitting under a pergola on a small lawn behind Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, a magnificent 17th century mansion in Marais. Nichanian, 67, is talking about her hair. During her 33-year tenure with Hermès, she is currently the artistic director of the brand's so-called men's world (not only includes two annual clothing collections, but also shoes, accessories and watches), and she has maintained a natural tone. Glossy maroon, wear it in a long, layered bob. But recently, the girls she saw walking in the city with bright neon manes were inspired. Although Nichanian-wearing a crisp white shirt, dark boots, jeans, and a few simple silver accessories-may ostensibly embody the principles of classic Parisian taste, she has always cherished, as she said, "those one step to one side. "

The scene around us also appears on its surface like a vignette designed to show French traditions. The Baroque-style Hôtel d'Ecquevilly was built in 1638 as a private residence of a Parisian nobleman and later became the home of Louis XV's hunting master. He commissioned exquisite bas-reliefs of wild boars and dogs, which still adorn its exterior . In the parquet-floored banquet hall of the building, Nichanian's team is trying on the latest menswear collection for Hermès. The brand was established 184 years ago and has become a treasure trove of French craftsmanship for several generations. There is a feeling that Hermès has been stationed here only before the completion of this building, and has been here for centuries-there is on-site dining, a woman in an apron appears to provide us with ice cream-this is all aspects of its operation They all adopt a meticulous and all-encompassing approach.

However, the history of the property is also marked by an extreme rejection of customs: it was permanently seized from the nobility during the French Revolution, and in 2014, gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin purchased a banquet hall in the building where he exhibited The works of contemporary artists, such as Takashi Murakami and KAWS. Similarly, although Hermes owes its past in many respects, it is not defined by it. The brand started as a harness manufacturer and is still known for its accessories (including silk-screen printed silk scarves and iconic leather handbags) and the meticulous craftsmanship in the production process: it employs thousands of people who work on hundreds of Young craftsmen in its dozens of workshops all over the city. But the spirit of innovation also stimulated the company's vitality. From the 1920s to other types of leather products, cars replaced horses as the main mode of travel. In the 1970s, it was transformed into a full-scale luxury brand; in 2010, Petit H was established, a workshop that reused waste materials from other departments of the brand to make new accessories, such as animal-shaped leather key rings and silk coin purses . Over the years, the owners of the company—everyone is a descendant of its original patriarch Thierry Hermes, spanning six generations—have learned that it is impossible to live long without change.

Similarly, although Nichanian's clothes are known for their exquisiteness, caution, and isolation from seasonal trends, she did not become one of the longest-serving non-founding designers of a French fashion company by doing the same thing over and over again. Just like an artist in the late stage of her career, she has mastered her own industry, so that she has no choice but to innovate and open up new fields with seemingly easy new fields that can only be achieved through hundreds of thousands of hours of experience. . "So many years, so many series," she said, "I'm still reinventing things."

The history of men’s fashion in the 20th century is essentially a process of formal surrender to individuality and flexibility, because the emergence of sporty silhouettes and multifunctional fabrics poses challenges to suits-generations are actually cross-ages and cross-cultural And cross-professional men’s uniforms. In May 1971, with the St. Tropez wedding of Mick and Bianca Jagger, Nichanian changed course decisively. She recalled that he was "the first man to wear a suit with sneakers", or at least the man who had the most photogenic appearances. He put three white wide lapels designed by Edward Sexton, a tailor on Saville Street. Paired with obviously worn tennis shoes. "Everyone said,'It's not elegant,'" she recalled. But for Nichanian, who was still a teenager at the time, this was an inspiring rejection of the status quo and confirmed that ease and personality are the way to the future. "This attitude is not conservative and expresses different things," she said, which resonated with her and continues to influence the way she makes clothes. She has never made a series that can really be called sportswear, as many brands have done in recent years-on the contrary, she is as keenly as the Magpie, extracting certain technological advances and concessions from this design school Comfortable, she is accustomed to updating the time-honored tailoring guidelines to ensure that her work will never sacrifice happiness for exquisiteness or exquisiteness for pleasure. The windbreaker can match classic fabrics such as cotton canvas with sports-style technical fabrics, such as Hermès' patented gloss and waterproof Toilbright; formal suit jackets can be worn on both sides or equipped with zipper pockets. Her clothes feel good in the most authentic touch: it fits the skin and is soft, adapts to actual needs and physical quirks. They are not designed to impress the audience, but to embrace the wearer in such a sensitive and even sensual way that he can't help expressing self-confidence—maybe even a little uncomfortable. As Nichanian said, "The clothes must fit the body."

When we talked for the first time in a video call in early June, I asked her if she had any details from the Spring 2021 series that she liked. "I'm sorry," she answered politely, "but the details of the last series are this series." In other words, each piece of clothing is made by seven craftsmen from textile factories, Hermès studios and Nichanian all over the country each season. The product of a large number of creative decisions and improvements made by the menswear designer team during the months of rushing back and forth. -The clothing workshop above the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré company store. Be considerate in everything, not rushed or impatient. If the hem or placket does not match her vision, she will gently ask to make it again and again until it matches. At the end of this process, a collection will appear. "It takes time to do real good things," she said. "I want to make my clothes beautiful, with the best fabrics and the best proportions." This commitment to integrity rather than speed is rare in the fashion industry, and its scope and momentum have grown exponentially in the past decade. , The reasons include increasing the holiday series and early autumn series (Hermes has not launched a men's series), the increasingly international market and social media accelerate the change of tastes. If most brands think from the perspective of seasons, Hermès seems to perceive time on the scale of centuries. Therefore, it turns out that it is very resistant to trends, placing the skilled operation of exquisite materials above temporary cultural fluctuations-this spirit is more in line with the spirit of the guild rather than the fashion house, and it values ​​knowledgeable workers (this may be That’s why Hermès designers not only tend to stay in the company for many years, but for decades, like other places). In fact, Nichanian does not view her work as designing fashion, but as a handicraft. Clothing designed for a modern appearance may be outdated, but finely crafted items designed with practicality and simplicity as design concepts can become indispensable and cherished indefinitely. She compares a piece of clothing that meets this ideal to a peas, or a child's beloved blanket: an emotional totem that is basically indispensable, woven in the fabric of life.

Nichanian is so concerned about the future that she doesn't like to talk about the past, but she was born and raised in Paris and thinks that her father planted the seeds of her perfectionism. As a first-generation Armenian immigrant, he started a profitable career in running a cake company, ensuring that the family's home overlooking Buttes-Chaumont Park in the 19th arrondissement is always a popular after-school destination for his daughters friends. Nichanian's mother is a Parisian. When the couple does not travel often, they regularly entertain friends from Greece, the United States, Armenia and France at home. "It allows me and my brother to see a wider world," Nichanian said. But if her parents were open-minded and internationalized, her mother also showed extraordinary strength (she lived her life with unwavering confidence)-"This is what I got from her," Nichanian said ——Her father is "highly demanding" (excellence is an expectation in school). When she told them that she wanted to study fashion, they agreed, but with one condition: she must be the best.

Her parents care about clothes themselves, which might help. Her father wore a custom suit and adhered to the strict medieval men's dress code. She remembered that she was fascinated by her mother's silk scarves (they are Hermes). But Nikanian's own tastes are more rebellious. When she was a teenager, she would buy fabrics, make her own coats and shirts, and sometimes imitate the styles worn by her brother. When she entered the École de la Chambre Syndicale to study fashion in 1976, Paris’s attitude towards women’s clothing had begun to change-Yves Saint Laurent became the first couture designer to launch ready-to-wear in her own name in 1966, and in 1971 The famous Battle of Versailles display, in which five American designers tried to replace the five incumbent Parisian fashion designers with a series display inspired by modern sportswear, which shows that the freedom of movement and expression will soon defeat the elegance of ladies— -But legendary French brands, including Givenchy and Christian Dior, are still considered impeccable, and their ideals of elegance and elegance determine the tone of the school's syllabus. There, Nichanian learned precision and drew many women with slender legs. After graduation, she was hired as a stylist for the Italian fashion brand Nino Cerruti's menswear collection. She likes the idea of ​​applying her skills to different fields.

While in Cerruti, she found that she liked the harsh world of tailoring. Cerruti himself inherited his family’s textile factory in 1951 and helped revolutionize the post-war menswear fashion by reimagining the rigid Italian suit in a more modern and unstructured form. He worked for the brand in the 1960s When Giorgio Armani became his disciple, he also nurtured Nichanian, and he still called him a friend and teacher. In his studios in Milan and Paris, she honed her abilities to achieve casual and refined silhouettes and to work with teams composed entirely of men. "I'm the only woman in Cerruti," she said, and recalled that even with her mentor, she sometimes had to fight to be taken seriously; he once regarded her feedback on design as a "female opinion." . She earned respect through the quality of her work and her dedication to her work. In Cerruti, she was also able to explore her passion for fabrics. She will visit the company's textile factory in Piedmont, northern Italy, and in the late 1980s helped create new technical weavings to match the brand's growing sentiment by sportswear. In 1987, when Jean-Louis Dumas, then the artistic director of Hermès, called her, she was the co-director of Cerruti's menswear collection and had already worked for the brand 11 year.

Nichanian initially thought that the call was a mistake, maybe even a joke. Dumas, the great-great-grandson of Thierry Hermès, became the company’s chief executive in 1978, and through the introduction of desirable brands, the house at the time was completely ill-it began to make people It feels like a relic of another era-transformed into an international luxury brand. Items designed for a new generation (such as the Birkin bag, who developed the famous bag after sitting next to actress Jane Birkin on a flight in 1984) and introduced a group of talented and forward-thinking designers. However, Nichanian is very happy in Cerruti and is committed to her work there. Nevertheless, he persuaded her to go to his office for breakfast. After the summer vacation, she arrived in September with a bag of croissants, and they immediately fell into a comfortable conversation. When they met for the second time, he asked her to take over the company's menswear department. In the proposal that later became a legend in the design world, he promised her complete creative freedom. She remembered his words as "whatever you want."

Part of the reason for HERMÈS's entry into the menswear segment is the zipper. In 1922, Thierry's grandson, Émile Hermès, obtained the exclusive right to use the bottle cap in Canada after seeing the bottle cap during a trip in Canada. In the following ten years, he launched several New products of this technology-including the brand's first leather handbag, and in 1925, its first men's clothing came out: a pullover suede golf jacket with a zipper collar. But for decades, the brand's accessories (starting in the late 1940s, including patterned silk ties) have been the most popular among male customers. However, when Nichanian arrived, her collection immediately impressed customers and critics. Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the current artistic director of Hermès, remembers how Nichanian’s first work was “a jacket with large padded shoulders-this is the 80s-that makes me feel so elegant." Suzy Menkes wrote in " An article in the New York Times praised Nichanian's 1992 spring collection-which included rich ochre, tan and cream casual suits-as the best she had seen in Paris. When other brands try to find relevance at the beginning of the new decade, they either seize the new hippie movement of the era as a reference or try to incorporate elements of streetwear. However, Nichanian’s “proportioned clothes, using exquisite fabrics, are exquisitely crafted, The colors are clever," Menkes wrote, "It is a men's designer clothing designed for the 1990s." From the beginning, Nichanian understood that her advantage lies in attracting customers who demand the same as her, and they may even care as much as she does. . "We talk to people directly and let them appreciate the value, the quality and the details," she said. "Even if we do something simple, such as a sweater or pants, I believe they can feel it and they can understand it."

However, in addition to having a keen eye and necessary financial luck, this customer is also loosely defined. "There is not a single Hermès man, there are many Hermès men," Nichanian said. She likes to design challenges for people of different ages, sizes, and backgrounds—for example, in 2017, she hosted a show in Los Angeles where chef Ari Taymor and curator Philippe Vergne, then the city’s director of the Museum of Contemporary Art , Walk among the models-and consider the practicality of their lives. She said that this is the key difference between a few women designed for men and a male legion designed for women: while the latter tends to be fantasy (and therefore like to refer to the muse embodying noble ideals) femininity), the former is more often in reality Medium processing, paying attention to the small details that might make the shirt more suitable for travel or the pants more forgiving. This is just one of the reasons why few women are as passionate about menswear as Nichanian: obsessed with cuff lengths and waistbands down to the millimeter level is not the dream that usually pushes people of any gender through fashion schools.

If she insisted mainly on modern suit changes in the 1990s-casual check wool jackets with suede panels, patchwork leather vests-by the early 2000s, the mood of fashion was more relaxed, and Nichanian showed her wealth The talent of subtly layering sports items on the level of imagination. For example, the characteristic combination of her 2006 spring collection appeared repeatedly in her subsequent products: delicate cotton T-shirts worn under a patterned knitted polo shirt, zippered suede tunic jacket with cashmere round neck sweater and lightly The crumpled linen-blend suit jacket has everything from buttoned shirts to vests. Although her collection in the 90s bears the imprint of her era in the Italian tailoring world, in the 2000s, she tended to adhere to the earthy tones determined by traditional fabrics (such as leather and tweed). Nichanian increasingly turned her attention to the United States and Japan looked for inspiration and began experimenting with lightweight textiles (high-tech ribbed knitted fabrics and elastic synthetic fabrics) and colors: lavender cashmere pullover, breathable pistachio linen pants, beach-color cable-knit turtleneck. These hues—a refreshing and evocative summer—have been immediately recognized as Nichanian's, and symbolize a decisive emotion behind her collection: joy.

Nichanian likes her job and understands how lucky it makes her. "When I talked to my friends from different companies in Paris, everyone was jealous of me because it was so great," she said, almost shy and sincere. As promised by Jean-Louis Dumas, she experienced extraordinary freedom. His son, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, has been Nichanian’s boss since 2005, and he also trusts her. “When I first met Véronique more than 30 years ago, I was very scared,” he said. "I was immediately overwhelmed by her energy and determination. She was very open to menswear, which was a real breakthrough for Hermès." He described their relationship as an ongoing conversation that goes far beyond fashion, and In 2008, she expanded her role as the art director of the men's world. She said that today, her job is similar to commanding, ensuring that each part contributes to a harmonious whole.

When the pandemic hit last year, this task became more challenging. Social distancing measures mean that individual men’s teams cannot collaborate in person or show their products to live audiences as usual. However, for Nichanian, this creates an opportunity. She and her team of seven designers are forced to face the needs of clients more directly than ever before: What do people almost want to wear when they leave the apartment? The resulting spring and autumn collection of 2021 is one of Nichanian’s most carefully adjusted and desired collections to date, balancing the current solution (a loose but delicate dove gray poplin drawstring pants, paired with casual A light blue twill jacket, a cross between a pajama top and a blazer) is optimistic about the future (a breezy violet cotton collarless shirt with a fluffy, vibrant striped wool vest on top).

Now, at Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, Nichanian eats lunch with her team almost every day, just like they did before the pandemic. (The afternoon I went, it was sushi at a nearby restaurant.) She treated her team as family, which not only reflected their close relationship—she had worked with several members for more than ten years—but she was Hermès understands it as a "very humane house," run by a family that really values ​​employees. One proof of this is that she herself can spend time with her husband, who lives in an Ottoman apartment in District 6 and has been married for 20 years. On weekends, they drove to the country house in Sancerre, where they read (Nichanian is currently reading the novel "Les Enfants Sont Rois" by the French writer Delphine de Vigan, who is a judge of the Rome Journalism and Literature Award), and search for local The flea market does host friends, most of them do not work in fashion. She joked that he was the only man who protested when she tried to give him "another Hermès sweater".

After the interview, she led me into the ballroom so that I could watch the fitting and watch the new series up close. The tall white walls are lined with delicate neutral and Mediterranean colors (sunflower yellow, sky blue, bougainvillea powder) clothes. She took out a light turquoise shirt tailored from Toilovent, a synthetic fabric she developed for the brand in 1999 that is almost impossible to be smooth and light, printed with a classic rein-style Hermès pattern, and a A smoky-grey work jacket made of a new material: soft, textured suede, actually a by-product that is usually discarded in the production of crocodile leather. She described how a white cotton suit jacket decorated with tiny cobalt flower patterns was flexible enough to be thrown into a beach bag and then worn into the city, but it was still slightly wrinkled. Nearby, a model is wearing a pair of pants. "He is tall," Nichanian whispered, "but he has good legs, which is good because I want to do some Bermuda."

Seeing most of the male stylists and designers at work-some of them wearing Hermès scarves and loosely tied around their necks-I remembered how Nichanian explained to me a few weeks ago that she wanted her clothes to make men The way it feels. "I don't want to change them," she said. "I just want them to feel the best, the most charming, the most comfortable, and the smartest." Being a woman who focuses on improving men is a strange job in many ways. But designing menswear has always been her path to freedom and achievement. She recalled her thoughts as a teenager, "Oh, men are so lucky, because they can do whatever they want." Now she said to herself, "Well, I'm a woman. I did what I wanted to do."

Portrait of Chris Knight. Models: Ottawa Kwami of Premium Models, Ombeni Jean of Tigers by Matt, Mountaga Diop of Success Models and Jodeci Faty of IMG Models Paris. Casting: Suun Consultancy. Hair: Olivier Norz at Home Agency. Makeup: Celine Martin of Artlist Paris. Photography assistants: Michal Czech, Nanao Kuroda. Digital technology: Rebecca Lièvre of Imagin. Assistant stylist: Theo Guigu. Hair Assistant: Zarah Benghida