Emanuele Coccia: It’s the second exhibition Olivier and I are doing. In this case, the theme was extremely clear. The overall intention was to produce a sort of new cartography of fashion to explore, on one side, how fashion invented and created a new language that is globally and planetary relevant. Unlike many other artistic artifacts, fashion produces objects that are perfectly readable and understandable from Beijing to Los Angeles, from Dakar to Sydney, from Paris to Buenos Aires. Of course, the process of becoming planetary has gone through violent and problematic phases, but it’s clear now that this is not something accessory to fashion because, in a way, fashion is the exercise of adding something new to your body or mixing your anatomical identity with something completely exterior. Some pieces are recognized as more intimate than your own body. It’s always this exercise of trespassing the border of your skin, and because of that, no other border becomes relevant.

Emanuele Coccia: It’s the second exhibition Olivier and I are doing. In this case, the theme was extremely clear. The overall intention was to produce a sort of new cartography of fashion to explore, on one side, how fashion invented and created a new language that is globally and planetary relevant. Unlike many other artistic artifacts, fashion produces objects that are perfectly readable and understandable from Beijing to Los Angeles, from Dakar to Sydney, from Paris to Buenos Aires. Of course, the process of becoming planetary has gone through violent and problematic phases, but it’s clear now that this is not something accessory to fashion because, in a way, fashion is the exercise of adding something new to your body or mixing your anatomical identity with something completely exterior. Some pieces are recognized as more intimate than your own body. It’s always this exercise of trespassing the border of your skin, and because of that, no other border becomes relevant.

What was interesting for us was to show how a kind of artificial universality is produced because, in a way, unlike other representations, universality in fashion is always produced by sewing elements together or by composing different memories, traditions, and nationalities. With our selection, we wanted to show garments that embody or unify different memories, traditions, genders, and silhouettes. That was the criterion for the choice of objects. It was extremely important for us to stress that, for fashion, every identity is a mixture or hybrid of different identities. There is no pure identity.

Yes, this was the second element. We wanted a young photographer who excels in still lifes of garments without human beings. The point was to grasp those basic forms that fashion has invented, like jeans, t-shirts, gloves, trench coats, etc., which are also universal in the sense that they are used by both the wealthy and non-wealthy, by every gender, and by every designer. In a way, they are forms available to everybody, but they are already meaningful or significant. The trench coat expresses a sort of urban mystery but can also signify much more. Items such as trench coats are basic elements of the universal language of fashion, and Gabriele was extremely talented in understanding this idea. He managed to express the almost Platonic essence of each garment. The choice of black and white emphasized this idea, depicting the garments as something anonymous. We see these forms every day, but they are becoming almost invisible; Gabriele made these forms in their strangeness visible again.

First of all, in a way, fashion is the only medium capable of crossing the limits of time. You cannot paint like we did in the 20s; it would be considered kitsch if you tried. In fashion, you can genuinely take past events and reinterpret them, liberating the past from its original context. You give these forms a new power to disrupt the present. It’s very strange since the chemical treatment of time allows us—through fashion—to escape from our life, both from the past and present.

Yes. There are many good examples; for instance, when Yves Saint Laurent in the 70s started using forms and styles from the 40s, it wasn’t an assertion that we should return to the 40s; rather, during the 40s, women were particularly powerful—men were off to war, so women were in control of the city. His idea was to use these forms to embody empowerment for women. The treatment of time and this characteristic of being borderless—not just in spatial terms but also in temporal dimensions—gives fashion incredible power. No other art form has this capacity. Of course, paintings, sculptures, and architecture are all practices that offer us freedom, but fashion grants us freedom every single day, in a public form, for every single body, because everyone is meant to be dressed.

Sometimes we forget that for a long time, garments were made from animal skin; thus, having a garment meant, for centuries, putting oneself under the skin of another life form. From this perspective, there are potentials that could allow fashion to reinvent our relationship with nature. Even among this year’s finalists, there are at least three projects truly focusing on this aspect. I believe it’s an issue that more and more young designers are considering in their work. I think that because of fashion’s universality—being an inescapable art, everyone must pass through it—fashion holds a vast potential for renewing our relationship with other life forms and allowing us to understand what it means to be under the skin of another.

This is actually something fashion radically engaged with in the 50s and 60s: when haute couture brands decided to open ready-to-wear lines, it marked the final divorce from the notion of fashion as an instrument of distinction, a class, or proof of economic and social superiority. There is a stylistic line that transcends all classes, so what fashion must do is not distinguish classes but capture the spirit of the time. That was the main idea and what granted fashion its enormous democratic potential. However, unfortunately, in the last decade—let’s say the past 20 years—a lot of companies have tried to revert to the idea of fashion as luxury, which is exactly the opposite, limiting access to very few people. This is an extremely conservative and reactionary idea. Luxury is not fashion. Fashion can, of course, embrace and include luxury, but luxury is not necessarily fashion. What those groups are doing together is extremely dangerous because it’s not just about economic politics; it’s an attempt to kill the spirit of what fashion is.

Let’s start with this institute here. It is so important because it does not follow the same model as other competitions like ANDAM, LVMH, or even HYRÈS, which tend to select candidates who share the same core profile as those at the helm of big companies. Here—you saw the candidates this year—you can find much more diversity. Some candidates do not produce with the intention of entering the industry. They create passionately and in a very diverse manner. This is also happening on different scales in different countries, in the sense that many students coming from fashion schools do not want to work in these large industries. They are trying to invent new commercial networks where, for instance, their creations are sold in art galleries, rather than in this huge retail system. So, that is one aspect. Another is that perhaps we should discuss new generations more—magazines shouldn’t solely focus on big names, but on the fashion produced by every single human being. We should really extend the discourse around fashion.

Yes, we finally need to integrate fashion into education at schools. Fashion is the only art that is not significantly taught at schools or universities, unless specified. Every person studying human and social sciences is expected to know a bit about the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but society tolerates ignorance regarding the history of fashion. This is also a fault of the big brands because, in a way, they are responsible for the lack of discourse surrounding fashion. They do not produce interesting discursive elements such as art galleries or books; they do not encourage people to write essays on their products. In essence, fashion companies are never interested in discourse; they assume that consumers who buy fashion are entirely illiterate. Just to give you an example, the fact that Miuccia Prada opened the foundation in Milan and showcased everything but never garments evidences their belief that fashion is simply business and not art. Otherwise, they would have displayed some of it.

Of course. If you promote and push certain values, then everyone will resist attempts to identify fashion with luxury. This ignorance also impedes people from appropriating fashion. That’s why it is also their responsibility. It is a crime that Chanel or other big companies like Balenciaga do not open their archives. Coco Chanel, it is evident, advanced humanity; she liberated many women. How can it be that the owners of this heritage hide it in the suburbs of Paris, believing they cannot show it for fear of being copied? It is such a ridiculous and irresponsible attitude from a cultural standpoint. These companies should finally recognize that they have cultural responsibilities to the global population, not just to the cities where they are based.

Yes, it is a very strange strategy, even from a commercial viewpoint. It’s clear that no one will ever possess the force and genius to create like Alexander McQueen. It would have been far better to take that money and invest it in some young designers rather than trying to produce a cult around a deceased person, which is purely necrophilia. It’s not just about countries; it’s also a major mistake from an economic perspective. Some of our past great designers were so significant—they contributed immensely to the globalization of fashion and initially had very strong successors, like Galliano, for example. But then, at a certain point, they became extremely reactionary. They are genuinely trying to kill fashion at the moment.

We’re completely lost, and the system will likely break down. You can welcome a designer but don’t expect them to dream the dreams of someone else. There are many new designers from China who do not encounter these cumbersome problems and focus more on genuinely innovative design. Those groups should operate more like art galleries.

Well, they could do that very quickly if they wanted.

Yes, but artificial intelligence is not an automatic instrument. When everyone uses artificial intelligence, the results become homogenized. It is a tool that cannot replace creativity, invention, and imagination. It allows us to go faster and create more, but we will always need people behind those instruments—in the same way that computers did not eliminate the need for someone to operate them to choose, decide what to do, or design what to wear. This is something special to fashion; we truly need to like the pieces we wear. One must, in any case, reinvent styles and reclaim one’s own freedom.

I would actually like to enter the industry to change the landscape a bit. It’s not easy, but there is significant resistance to culture in general. I’m working with the Fondation Cartier in Paris, trying to develop spaces where fashion can be discussed. It’s absurd that there’s no venue in either Paris or New York where fashion could be debated.

Reese Cooper: The simple answer is my girlfriend got me a pair for Christmas a few years ago and within a week I had gotten them pretty dirty. I wanted to create a pair a little more durable / able to stand up to the elements!

R: I am a fan of both companies and greatly value any opportunity to work with their technologies. I think it’s a really fun juxtaposition to use materials like this on a footwear silhouette normally associated with very casual comfort.

R: The intention was to keep it as close to the iconic design and silhouette of the classic UGG as possible, while changing the way we look at it. “Can you still tell it’s an UGG at first glance?” While keeping that in mind, pushing material development as far as we could.

R: We actually have quite a lot of synergy between the two brands when it came to palette. While at first it felt very classic UGG or classic RCI, it really can be said about both. The one that feels more “me” is the signal orange pair, however they were the ones who pushed us to produce it for commercial use instead of just friends and family!

R: In any development process there are things that go wrong or come out unexpected, the trick is to look at them with an open mind. They often turn out cooler than your original idea!

R: We shot it by my grandparents’ home. The shoe to me needs to work in a muddy, waterfront town like theirs, however also hold up in a city environment. We’ve tested them in Los Angeles, was a good way to test the other end of the spectrum!

R: Hopefully however they want. I think they’re pretty versatile & I’m excited to see how people interpret them once they’re out in the world.

R: Learn as many different aspects as possible. Design, web coding, studio photography etc. Have a decent understanding of all of these things and you become less reliant on external factors. Feels good to be in control when you’re able to. And cheaper!

Christophe Goineau: Thank you, I am great, I just came back from Greece, I really love it there.

I always say, the gods could choose any place to settle, and it wasn’t Paris. Maybe there is a reason for it.

Yes, I would not have imagined staying that long, but well, here I am, and it isn’t too bad (laughs). Even if I wanted, I would not have found any other company that could have given me all these opportunities, powerful freedom of creation, and such a high-level product. So, I’m the lucky one, I really found something that I like, Hermès is one of the most beautiful companies. Still, today, I’m very happy.

No, absolutely not. I was attending a business school before I started at Hermès, which was already a big international company back then in 1987, but obviously not as big as today; it counted about 1200 employees. Very quickly, I realized that the huge difference between Hermès and other brands was the product and the quality. I met so many passionate people who could talk about products for ages, and that is for a reason. I joined the silk department very soon; it was so small back then because we were selling mostly ties and very few items. At that time, Jean-Louis Dumas, our former CEO, was also in charge of the art direction, today, it is actually his son who took over. Dumas and I had a lot of meetings, and he liked the suggestions and ideas I was proposing, so our work relationship was very organic.

The possibilities to work with silk are endless in a way, you can experiment with its design, color, and shape in so many ways. If I had the chance, to work with it for the next 100 years, I would do that.

Silk, first, is quite a unique fabric, and it took me some time to learn about it. As you might know, it is naturally cold, but it immediately becomes warm when you put it on your skin. Also, it is hypoallergenic. So nobody, I mean, almost nobody, is reacting to silk. Then, one more very special thing is that it captures color like nothing else since its thread is transparent and very long. It is magic. We will probably find something in the future that is going to be equally beautiful, but for now, there really is a pure, appreciative connection to silk.

Silk is light sensitive, so if you leave it in the sun for too long, it will start to fade. But at Hermès, we work with a color that is quite robust and stays, it really goes inside the threads. I think it is actually one of the best jobs at Hermès, the coloration. We have trained people whose job is to create colors. If I were to change positions, I would do that. They create about 20 variations of one color to select the right one with the designer. It’s really incredible. Hermès is a house of colors. To create the different color variants, the artisans at Hermès refer to the house’s repertoire of nearly 75,000 silk samples and shades.

Yes. We sell it a lot, but since orange is a very intense Hermès color, people also love to go rather for a beautiful Hermès red. I think we are selling colors like no other brand, we really hold a big love for colors. For me talking about design, it is always about sharing joy and giving people a reason to be happy, colors play a big role for that.

Yes, it is the same as the gift of having a high sensitivity to listen to music. Some can really recognize the smallest changes. Véronique Nichanian, Artistic Director of Men’s Universe, is so good at choosing colors, she’s the master of coloration as well because for the ready to wear, she works so precisely with colors and color combinations. Sometimes it feels crazy when we think about how much time we spent on small details that probably no one will see.

Yes, I think sometimes they don’t know why there is a difference but once they start wearing it, they will feel the details even if they could not express it and this is the reward for us investing so much time into this.

Yes, it makes so much sense, it all goes back to a long time of working with colors and developing profound knowledge.

The model and values of craftsmanship that have always guided the house of Hermès encourage the careful and respectful use of raw materials.

Water is a fundamental and precious element in textile finishing, whether for the washing, dyeing or colour preparation process. We constantly innovate to optimize our use of water.

Yes, we once created a tie for a US teacher who was preparing to give his first class from a spaceship in outer space. He was always wearing ties when teaching on earth, and said he could not teach without a tie. So we designed a special piece made from one of our scarves and named it “Dream of Space.” We worked on this design together with NASA in order to follow their safety rules, such as the non-flammability of the fabric, etc., so we obviously could not use any silk or cashmere.

Also, I remember we created a tie for a steeplechase horse race in France. The Hermès team that was responsible for the decoration requested a tie for a horse, and that is what we did. We have really designed a few crazy things.

The first thing, I would say, is that there are two rules at Hermès: there is freedom of creativity, allowing me the ability to make creative decisions without boundaries. Of course, we discuss options with Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Artistic Director of Hermès, and Véronique Nichanian, Artistic Director of Men’s Universe, but we appreciate the fact that there is never only one way to go. The second rule is that all buyers are completely free to buy whatever they like. I think this supports a very healthy balance to keep a quite high standard of creativity, and every single shop can select what they are thinking is the best fit for them.

Another important element is that we are makers and not only retailers, and I think that’s a big difference if you compare it to some of our competitors: For example, if we work on a scarf, we start from one side, on which you have a thread of silk that we are weaving, we continue with the flat screen to then do the print, colors, and confection – we really process all the steps ourselves to make sure the product is done correctly. We are trying to put so many details in every single step – there are always shortcuts to get things done, but we trust our process. So, when I started at Hermès, I didn’t quite understand why everyone constantly spoke about quality since, for me, the company already had the best quality possible. But then, with time, I understood, quality is a daily task, you have to work every day to protect and ensure the best quality.

We manage every single step in-house, in Lyon, which is exceptional. Other brands outsource certain parts of production. At Hermès, we weave the silk, make the frame for the engraver that will define the coloration, print the silk, and make the final piece, whether it’s a scarf or tie. And every single step along the way has to be special, adding detail, upon detail, upon detail.

As we are always searching for the best quality and know-how, some of our cashmere products are made in Scotland or Nepal and knitwear in Germany or Italy. A few months ago, someone was asking me what exactly my job was, and I think it is so much about working with emotions. A gift, for example, is supposed to be an extension to express how deep your love is for someone. When someone opens the orange box, it really is a special moment that we share with our customer. This makes the relationship between Hermès and its customers very strong, but they will also have a very strong relationship with the product because they will remember the special occasion of the gift forever.

A 140 centimeter scarf that I gifted to a friend a few years ago. He is a biker, so we designed a scarf with a bike, a very futuristic thing. When I gifted it to him, he was skeptical, saying he would not wear any scarves, but then he saw it and was so happy, also knowing that this has been specifically made for him.

I think it is a quite general trend, how ties are being worn nowadays. The differences lie more in the choice of colors and design. For example, I would say that the US would rather go for bright colors, like bright red, that you will not find in Asia. In Europe, men go for more dark colors. One other trend though, we observed is that the US market strongly goes back to formal. During Covid, the sales of ties went down but recovered super quickly right after the pandemic.

In general, men are selecting more carefully because they want the tie to speak about them and their personality. It has to be connected to their soul and their character.

When I started joining the company, in the late 80s, the motivation behind buying a Hermès tie was to be part of something, more like an obligation. This has completely changed. Nowadays, you don’t have to wear ties anymore, you only do it if you feel liking doing it. The obligation has turned into a pleasure.

It depends on the product. For ties, we have mainly internal designers; in this case, it is Philippe Mouquet. He is working for the company for more than 30 years as well, mostly on the designs that I then select. We have a place called the fridge (laughs) in which we try to find the ingredients to make the best collection possible. For scarves, it is completely different. The first option is that I find an interesting designer, illustrator, or artist to suggest a collaboration. The second option would be the other way around: I am being sent a lot of portfolios, and I am trying to answer each and every one, because you really never know. Creation is sometimes like little flowers, you have to be careful because we can easily step on them. So, I am taking my time to consider all of them. And then there is the third way, which I love especially, it is a very Hermès way: doing things by chance, meaning you discover a new talent thanks to recommendations, or you coincidentally run into someone. This is so interesting, as it opens the door to your own creative processes through spontaneous influences.

I generally like to stick to a process in which I first talk with the men working in big cities to do something which is very contemporary as there is always a trend, but it is not easy to look at it when you are inside. When I go through Hermès archives from the 50s, 60s or 70s, I can feel that they were always en vogue, always on the trend of silhouettes, design and colors etc. It is important to understand what is going on these days.

Sometimes, when I reach out to collaborators whose work is really different from Hermès, they are very surprised. In fact, I think this is the interesting part about making a selection – which ultimately takes Hermès somewhere people are not expecting. Of course, the Hermès universe has a certain style, but within this universe, there is a lot of space to experiment. I try to find a good balance, I feel Hermès is a house of balance, between all our ingredients. I think this idea of balance is connected to the fact that we are not making a product for one season, nor do we dictate to our customers what to buy by going with certain trends only. Our work is like writing a book or a TV series: if you like the first season, you want to see the second season, but if the first season is too close to the second season, you get bored. But if you don’t recognize in the second season what you liked about the first one, you are lost. This is what makes our job so interesting, you always try to be in this sort of evolution rather than revolution.

Not really. Tie is a versatile object, close to the customer and brings out a lot of emotions and not depending on if you are a women or a men. A lot of women are buying men’s clothes and accessories.

Well, we have two different visions but in between, anything is possible. A lot of women actually are buying menswear and a lot of men are buying womenswear, such as scarves etc. Our customer has an autonomous choice and options to choose from, without us creating or suggesting something that we think is genderless. I don’t know if this will still be working in like 20 years but, so far it does.

A few years ago, we launched the double face silk, which is quite innovative. Currently, I’m working on adding natural, organic fabrics and fibers that are helpful for the way people are living now, meaning, for example, a scarf that does not crease, products that you can easily put into your washing machine, and so on. It won’t be specifically natural fabrics only; rather, it  might be about new ways of mixing fabrics in order to achieve our goals. Another topic that will become interesting is 3D printing, the new possibilities of screen printing, and how to improve it.