A look from the Hermès Spring Summer 2025 mens collection. Photography courtesy of Armando Grillo / Gorunway.com. The sun decided to come out in Paris for the Hermès Spring Summer 2025 mens collection. With the weather playing hard-to-get across Europe in an unseasonably cold and wet June, it was poetically fitting that Véronique Nichanian’s SS25 collection saw attendees peeling off their just-in-case layers and reaching for a pre-show cucumber cooler.
It was a show that made this editor want to pack her beach bag (that perfect blue denim Haut à Courroies one, preferably) and head off to the Amalfi coast.
Indeed, set against large screen installations of blue water and just before our Instagram feeds turn into a European summer scroll, these were clothes that made you want to holiday. A palette of colours, that in the show notes were described as ocean, mist, sand, lychee, buvard pink and matcha, were imagined in the most covetable buttery calf skin, cotton poplins, canvases, drills and silk twills – fabrications few if any have mastered quite like Hermès.
Nichanian elevated the idea of resort wear to a dress code that reads uber chic but still chill. A take on relaxed casual that one can only hope will rub off and see Sydneysiders swap their lycra for some relaxed tailoring. From the beach to the bar of particular note were pale pink and eggshell pastel shirts with nonchalant necktie details, the most perfect wide leg pants teamed with cultish sandals that one can already feel the fashion girlies wish-listing. Cool shell tanks layered under half buttoned overlays and soft leather vests in the colour of sea spray.
My pick was a clever take on the classic white shirt, subtly sheer and half-lined with a printed silk twill and styled elegantly half-tucked into a navy Bermuda short. The effect was a-look-twice-double-take to catch a glimpse of the underlay as the model breezed past. Chic as hell.
There was a sense with all exits that each could effortlessly translate from the day into the evening, given the propensity these days for pieces to have ‘one, two or three lives’ and upping that cost per wear factor of Hermès as investment dressing.
As to be expected, the accessories were as much the hero as the clothes, a show complete with all forms of carryall bags, sandals and dockers hats. The crisp, silver metal chain link details skimming necklines and worn on wrists with hand in pockets caught my eye in particular.
Beauty details are often an overlooked detail at mens collections but these boys of summer had the most covetable matte yet fresh skin that seemed to accentuate freckles perfectly and served as a walking advertisement for the house foundations. Creative director of Hermès Beauty, Gregory Pypylis, tapped makeup artist Alice Gabbai to extend prints into a tattooed effect snaking down legs and peaking through chests adding to the laid back easiness of it all.
As fashion shows and fashion weeks keep proving to be morphing into opportunities for pageantry and clickbait look-at-me moments, Nichanian’s vision for Hermès firmly continues to centre beautiful and polished clothing above all else. Her SS25 collection felt like a fashion holiday in every sense, a uniform for good taste by the sea.
Megha Kapoor is an editor, writer and creative director. She was formerly editor of Vogue India (Reset) and founded INPRINT Magazine.
