“We all agreed that the show had to be very special and everything had to count—the space, the casting, the music,” said Lemaire. “We were looking for a live band, and it wasn’t easy to find the right one. Eventually my girlfriend found this great Chinese artist, and of course Pierre-Alexis wanted to hear the music. He sent me a very nice text saying, ‘Okay, it’s strange, it’s interesting, and it’s your choice. Let’s go for it.’ I said, ‘Great, but do you think it is Hermès enough?’ And he said, ‘That’s not for me to say. It’s your choice.’ I really appreciated his openness.”
He also appreciates working in a proudly unfashiony house, which shuns such public relations ploys as making red-carpet dresses or Twitter-genic runway pieces that never go into production. “For years I felt like I didn’t really belong in fashion, because I’d look at my colleagues and I couldn’t share their hysteria about shows, models, and switching from one thing to another every season,” said Lemaire. “I’m interested in the practicality of a timeless wardrobe of essentials that women will wear for years. And that’s what Hermès is about.”
It is certainly what Pierre-Alexis wants him to deliver: “Most companies are finance driven, but Hermès is object driven, and that’s very rare,” he said. “Objects shouldn’t be disposable—they should last, living with you year after year until you give them to your friends or your children. One of Hermès’s strengths is that we have always made horses’ harnesses, and a harness can never break.”
