Hermès designs the future of fashion shows.

Jon Lipfeld, entrepreneur and contributor to the book “Luxe & Résilience”, published by Dunod in January, looks back on this very special year for fashion and luxury. The pandemic period, from Paris Fashion Week from March 2020 to that of March 2021, was marked by fashion shows of a new kind, and in particular those of the Hermès house. According to Jon, the past twelve months have thus accelerated the rise of “event hybridization”. Immersed in the future of fashion shows, in this new meeting of the Club des Chroniqueurs du Journal du Luxe.

March 2020: Paris Fashion Week Women's Fashion is held in a tense atmosphere. Concerns about the Covid-19 epidemic are growing. Most parades, fairs and showrooms are maintained, but with great hesitation on the part of organizers and guests. This is the case of Premiere Classe, whose event in the Jardin des Tuileries is organized by WSN, for whom I worked at the time. The closing of the event is a relief. I then begin to sense a paradigm shift for events…

At the forefront of luxury and fashion observers, Eric Briones also has new intuitions. He is preparing his next collective book “Luxe & Résilience”, and has asked me to write a chapter on the future of events, and fashion shows in particular. We are experiencing the first confinement in France: a period which first causes amazement, concern and frustration. Then, the exceptional constraints imposed challenge the creativity of fashion and luxury professionals.

In terms of fashion shows, the first major innovative achievements were initiated during Paris Fashion Week Men. The presentation of the Hermès Homme SS 2021 collection seems to me to be one of the most audacious. The artistic director of the house, Véronique Nichanian, and the director Cyril Teste, collaborate together and offer a performance that projects us between the realism of a backstage and millimetric narration. Performance in more ways than one, since it is broadcast live on the hermes.com site. The bet is successful and marks in my opinion a turning point for the fashion show format. He plays with new constraints and explores new narrative fields. The presentation film of the collection, aptly baptized Hors-Champ, is a hybrid artistic proposition. It is an original creation combining parade, live performance and documentary film, which uses new technological means of production and distribution.

A year later, in March 2021, during Paris Fashion Week, Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski presented her new Women's Ready-to-Wear Fall-Winter 2021-2022 collection. On this occasion, Hermès invites its community to live the Triptych experience. To the challenge of real time, the luxury house adds that of space, and thus offers us a remote experience in three acts: New York, Paris and Shanghai.

Tryptich moves. It is a magnificent ode to movement and to women, which mixes parade and performing arts. Thanks to new multidisciplinary collaborations, creativity and technology merge.

For years and at each fashion event, I have realized the importance that physical encounter plays in our relationships, and the extraordinary capacity of events to create bonds and shared emotions. So, when the economic, social and health contexts change suddenly, when physical gatherings are reduced or even prohibited, you have to reinvent yourself. Experiences are becoming hybrid, as are economic sectors, and therefore also the means used.

I defined the concept of event hybridization in 2020 in chapter 13 of the book “Luxe & Résilience”. Event hybridization consists of combining the necessary means to create a strong experience and amplify its reach, in each of the three physical, digital and virtual spaces. I am amazed by the oh so artistic, singular and daring way in which the Hermès house is implementing it once again. Moreover, Tryptich is for me a kind of dream come true, since I imagined in my chapter an event called Beyond time zones. It's an interactive experience happening at the same time, in three cities around the world, in three different time zones. After time and space, interactivity is certainly one of the great challenges to be met… Definitely the future of the event is now!

Visual credits: ©Hermès.