Véronique Nichanian, the artistic director of menswear at Hermès, came to town last week to celebrate its expansion as the world’s only Hermès store devoted solely to this purpose.“If you want my advice to the men, be unique!” Nichanian told me. She was very emphatic. “Be unique by the way you want to dress–this is my point.
designer shoes. There is no more you should do that or you should do this. No more. Just feel free and express what you like and what you want to be.”Easier said than done for some, admittedly. But most men who wear suits feel strongly about them, she says. Just ask about a particular cut of sleeve, a pocket placement, the correct amount of stitching or a collar width, and they’ll opine very definitely about what is appropriate.
Fortunately good taste is malleable depending on time, place and occasion. According to Nichanian, there currently exist no rules to dressing well. Rather, if you have quality, excellence of construction and beautiful fabric the rest takes care of itself.“Before, men used to buy a suit when they start to think, I need a suit,” she says. “Now they have discovered the pleasure of having one more coat or one more suit or having the suit of their dreams or the shirt of their dreams.”Nichanian herself travels frequently—to San Francisco and the South of France in the past few months, and Tokyo, the location of one of the only two other sur-measure shops in the world (the other is in Paris) and where she has traveled for 30 years. It’s there that she soaks up inspiration and the freedom of style she instills in her suits: One close friend is an older gentleman who met her one evening wearing a floral silk women’s pajama top. She thought it was genius: “I was like, whoa!”“Men have discovered that it’s a nice part of life to change and to talk about–it’s a way they can change themselves.”It was a special evening for VIP customers and editors complete with a violinist and china emblazoned with the Hermès logo. Similar special events will be in San Francisco and Seattle later this month, though the New York location will be the only US location to offer demi-measure and sur-measure bespoke services. The custom program allows customers to pick from more than 5,000 fabric choices (think caviar wool, chevron cashmere, salt-and-pepper blending–a swath of your own fabric is kept in an archive should you ever need repairs) and dictate every inch of the piece. Prices start at $9,500 for the bespoke three-fitting service, which requires more than 30 measurements and roughly nine weeks to complete. Tailors will travel to a home or office to complete the fit.
Veronique Nichanian, deputy artistic director of the Hermes men's universe.Indeed. Expect to see a wide swath of men in the 690 Madison boutique as well. During dinner I spoke with a medical doctor who works in the pharmaceutical industry and who travels regularly to Italy for bespoke suits from the likes of Kiton and Brioni. The opening of this new store will mean his first foray into Hermès suiting in the US, though he has long been a loyal customer of other of its services.“Feel my shoulder,” he told me, eagerly. The seam between sleeve and the top of the suit lay flush with the rest of the arm, with no rope or ribbing underneath to hold it up. “No one makes a suit like this!” If you dropped it, it would crumble flat but regain its shape flawlessly the moment you picked it up.
