Hermés Shakes Up Downtown LA

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Timing is everything, and Los Angeles is hitting its sweet spot. In just the past few seasons, the city has seen major runway shows from Tom Ford, Saint Laurent, Moschino and Tommy Hilfiger. Each seems to have gotten bigger and buzzier in scale; this time, LA bore witness to an extremely well done fashion experience (think runway show and fashion party, but bigger) thanks to Hermès, with what seemed like half of the New York editors in attendance. It appears (finally) that LA has more than better weather after all.

Fun fact: Hermès opened its first U.S. boutique in New York City in 1929. It was the start of the Great Depression, so it’s not much of a surprise that it “bombed,” pretty much immediately, according to Axel Dumas, the house’s president and a sixth-generation member of its founding family. Feeling superstitious, when Hermès next ventured stateside to open shop, they avoided NYC and picked instead what seemed like a safer bet — a location on Rodeo Drive.

Back to present day LA — kicking off an event two years in the making was a runway show set between graffitied walls and set under the open sky featuring Hermès Men’s Universe creative director Véronique Nichanian’s spring 2017 collection. Originally shown last June in Paris, the pieces felt at home in Southern California — ocean blue trousers and croc bombers, lemon yellow shark-faced bowling bags, and tie-dye button-downs, cardigans, and jackets (this section appropriately set to the tune of The Beatles “All You Need Is Love,”) all paired with sandals.

For the party part, Nichanian enlisted the help of graphic artist Anthony Burrill to evoke the spirit of Hermès’s DwntwnMen through slogans, each with an experiential room in its assignment. PLEASE DO TOUCH invited guests to feel framed swatches of Hermès’s exquisite cashmeres and leathers. FEEL THE COLOR bathed guests in light affected by colored plastic sheets. In the GIVE THE JOY BACK game room, guests battled it out at vintage Donkey Kong and Hoops arcade games, devouring mounds of caviar and trays of fresh oysters between rounds. Also there to experience: MAKE TIME YOUR OWN; PERSISTENCE IS FRUITFUL; SAY SOMETHING; SHAKE ME UP!

This ultimately led the party outdoors to a courtyard featuring food “trucks” (airstreams really) serving fresh uni tacos, a fully stocked bar, toasts and desserts. Here, IT ALL MAKES SENSE. As the impeccably Hermès-kitted Cold War Kids (a self-proclaimed “LA band,”) performed their own songs (and covered Rihanna’s “Love On the Brain,”) a train rumbled by, horn blaring, reminding everyone exactly where one of Paris’s chicest houses chose to celebrate.

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