Hermès stages dramatic Shanghai return in show of quiet confidence
Under the low-hanging, moisture-heavy skies of what locals call the “plum rain season” (méiyû in Chinese), Hermès unfurled on Friday the second chapter of Nadège Vanhee’s Women’s Ready To Wear Fall/Winter 2025 collection on Shanghai’s North Bund, just as dusk began to blur the line between skyline and sky.
The plum rain isn’t just meteorological; it evokes a moody, atmospheric quality often referenced in East Asian art, poetry, and fashion. In the context of the Hermès runway show, it added a layer of softness and sensuality—misty light, reflective surfaces, and a natural filter that made the fabrics, colors, and silhouettes feel dreamier and more tactile.
The setting—a long, glowing orange pavilion purpose-built by the Huangpu river’s edge—was both spectacle and stagecraft. As guests, made up of local fashion insiders and loyal clients from around the world, including Manila, settled on cube seats dressed in the familiar weave of Parisian bistro chairs, rotating glass panels revealed the city behind them. The transformation was slow, deliberate, and cinematic: the skyline glinting to life, a tableau of economic ambition and the shifting fortunes of China’s once-unshakeable luxury appetite.
Symbolism
It was hard to miss the symbolism. The city that had once personified luxury’s explosive growth now stands at a more tempered pace. China’s property crisis has dampened consumer confidence, and even Hermès, long considered resilient, is feeling the chill. There was none of the overt display of wealth this writer witnessed in the form of a rainstorm of hard-to-get exotic purses in its last major event in this city in 2017, when Vanhee showed the house’s Fall-Winter 2017 women’s collection to 1,200 guests.
Still, the house holds its head high.
This time Vanhee responded not with extravagance but with a kind of playful pragmatism—her signature. There was a palpable sense of liberation in this distance from Paris: no nods to the typical “Parisienne” mythology, just honest, artful daywear executed with the precision only Hermès can afford.
It was a timely statement, too. In February, Hermès confirmed its long-rumored entry into haute couture—a move both surprising and inevitable for a house built on exquisite craftsmanship. While the Shanghai show wasn’t a couture debut, it hinted at that direction: impeccable construction, a deep respect for technique, and clothing that whispered luxury rather than shouted it.
For the city dweller
This was dressing for the city dweller who wants to move, stretch, traverse—without losing grace. Suede boots with hiking laces grounded the looks. Ribbed sweaters were tied around the waist, foulards tucked into ponytails like a knowing wink to the house’s equestrian heritage. From afar, it was sportif; up close, quietly sumptuous.
The rope motif—a subtle graphic borrowed from the house’s 2023 scarf, “Dressage Tressage,” by Virginie Jamin—ran through the collection like a whispered through-line, linking belted coats to leather panels and quilted linings. Meanwhile, maximalist accessories offered playful punctuation: mini Kellys worn crossbody, Swarovski-dotted boots, and baseball caps in buttery lambskin with silk chinstraps.
The color story mirrored the rhythms of the land, blending saddle browns and sunbaked ochres with ember reds and flame-touched orange, softened by washes of lilac, chalky white, and deep, nocturnal blue.
In this city of shifting horizons, the statement felt less like a declaration and more like a quiet truth.
