PERFECTLY GROOMED
She rose quietly to the prestigious role of Hermès artistic director, but French designer Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski has been priming for the role her entire career.
Hermès artistic director Nadège VanheeCybulski has been priming for the role her entire career.
In retrospect, it seems like destiny. But if anyone had told Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski back in the late 90s how things would turn out for her, she would have laughed in disbelief. The young woman from a small town in northern France near Lille was – like many aspiring fashion designers at that time – a big fan of Belgian avant-garde, and particularly admired Martin Margiela, the creative director at Hermès. One day, in the Hermès boutique in Paris, she was finally able to buy a leather bracelet from his collection.
After graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Vanhee-Cybulski started her first job with none other than Martin Margiela himself, travelling between Belgium, France and Italy for the role. Next, she moved to London and joined a team headed by Phoebe Philo that set out to redefine the Céline brand, and also met her future husband, a British artist. Most recently, she held the position of design director for The Row in New York, before everything came full circle: in 2014 Vanhee-Cybulski returned to Europe to take up her first job as creative director in Paris – at Hermès.
Thus, the French family-owned company hired a designer with international experience to be successor to Christophe Lemaire and at the same time, brought a hitherto little-known creative designer into the limelight, something Vanhee-Cybulski would have to grow accustomed to.
For her premiere show for Hermès, Vanhee-Cybulski had her friends seated so they would be the first faces she saw when stepping onto the stage. “I am already very tense before the presentation,” admits the 38-year-old. “But it’s nice to be in the limelight and I’m excited to work with so many special and talented people,” she says of the company’s artisans. Learning that she drops by the studios to say “hi” to ask how people are makes it easy to believe her when she says she has no interest
‘‘AS A WOMAN, ONE MAY HAVE MORE PERSONAL EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE WAY WOMEN LIKE TO DRESS”
in showing off. Rather, she sees herself as the conductor of an orchestra. “The technicians are just as much a part of the creative process as the designers and stylists,” she says. “If someone shows me he is working on a decoration for the shop, I might discover a totally new material. These are like mutual trades of experiences, perspectives and visions.”
When Vanhee-Cybulski walks into our interview she is wearing dark cashmere trousers, Egyptian jewellery and Nike sneakers. She loves to play with materials: for her debut autumn/winter ’15/’16 collection she challenged textile developers with her vision for waterproof wool fabrics; for the current spring/summer season she revived old techniques and interpreted a classic Carré print as embroidery or combined leather with patchwork silk. Because she prefers to be creative in company, it’s not uncommon for Vanhee-Cybulski to be in the design studios and workshops. “In the beginning the team was a bit irritated by it,” she confesses, adding that they assumed she was a control freak. When working alone, she creates inspiration boards and, as she did for the current collection, formulates keywords for the team such as “sportswear” and “female paradox”.
Her looks resemble her own style and persona: reserved, discrete and only at second glance quite cool and complex. And she cannot be pigeonholed. For instance, she responds to the assumption that female designers have a typically feminine approach, with: “That’s a cliche. There are also men who design perfect dresses. As a woman, one may have more personal empirical knowledge about the way women like to dress.”
Her holistic way of thinking is a good match for Hermès, a house where craftsmanship is appreciated and celebrated. During her initial phase Vanhee-Cybulski delved into the history of the brand, spanning about 180 years, and has tried to integrate familiar elements like certain Carré patterns into her designs. Has she been absorbed by Hermès since starting? “When you work in the fashion industry one year feels more like 10,” she answers. And asked about the most interesting materials she has developed, she says: “The ones you cannot recognise as innovative.”