Véronique Nichanian Defines Hermès Men One Final Time At Paris Fashion Week
Transformable, timeless, and at once singular and versatile, Hermes' latest collection moves like old friends, companions from a life in motion.
For 37 years, Hermès menswear has spoken in a resolutely adult voice, shaped by the steady vision of the house’s longtime creative director, Véronique Nichanian.
Presented on Saturday at the Palais Brongniart at Paris Fashion Week, the men’s Fall collection 2026 was Nichanian’s final show for Hermès, bringing to a close nearly four decades of uninterrupted authorship at the house and a final articulation of an established vocabulary that combined technical fabrics with the most classic forms, innovating, surprising, endlessly renewing the bonds between the body, the era and the garment."
The final presentation by Nichanian was all about clothes for today and forever.
" This last collection was a collection just like the others,” she told AFP. “As subtle nods, however, I included pieces from different collections, with outfits from 1991, 2001, and 2010. This was to prove how timeless Hermès clothing is. They are made for today and for always.”
The runway featured silk turtlenecks worn with straight-leg leather trousers, leather and wool outerwear, shearling-lined coats and tailored jackets. Materials included calfskin, lambskin and crocodile, alongside cashmere knitwear and wool suiting. The collection emphasised modular dressing and functional construction rather than seasonal styling.
The colour palette remained largely restrained, with black, navy, taupe and burnt grey dominating, offset by occasional injections of colour like peat, chalk, bark and midnight blue. Jackets in orange and yellow appeared alongside flashes of bright lining visible in movement. Nichanian also reintroduced garments from earlier collections, including a pinstriped leather suit first shown in 2003 and a calfskin jumpsuit from 1991. These pieces were presented alongside new designs without distinction, underscoring continuity in cut, material and proportion across decades.
Other looks included a full-grain lambskin jacket, a reversible cashmere and wool travel coat, a double-breasted suit in pinstriped leather. For the French designer the vision was to make "everything fit together but mobile, alive, enduring, seamlessly, continuously, through a season made for a lifetime. The designs do not deny comfort but invites it to forge its own way, off the beaten path, between straight grain and sensuous curve. Shearling lined with Toilovent, lightweight
calfskin, hybridisations wrought with sensitivity, deer grain oriented inside out. Airy interfacing, weightless bouclette and modulated envelopments. Striking the note just between refinement and sensuality and shared obsessions."
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A khaki crocodile-skin suit was among the most notable looks, styled with minimal intervention. Accessories included Plume Fourre-Tout bags in box, Evercolor and Barénia calfskin, belts in calfskin and crocodile, and lace-up and ankle boots in Toscan calfskin and shiny crocodile.
Moreover, this year's collection highlighted how a look on a stylish man suffices for them to recognise each other – united like the eye and hand – in these selfish details: étrivière stitching, double lambskin lapel, off-centre bellows pockets. The accessories included Plume Fourre-Tout bags in box calfskin or in Evercolor calfskin, mix & patch scarves in lambskin and cashmere intarsia, Les Étriers de couleurs fringed scarves in cashmere and silk, fringed scarf ties in silk twill.
Also brooch in rose gold, white diamonds and brown diamonds, moonstone and black jade, Boucle Sellier Onde long necklaces, and Hermès H08 watches, cases in titanium, Hermès Manufacture movement H1837 amongst other things.
Backstage, many notable figures gathered to greet and congratulate her, including R&B artist Usher, designer Paul Smith, rapper Travis Scott and actors James McAvoy and Chace Crawford. After the finale, Nichanian took a final walk down the runway to a standing ovation as screens displayed images from past Hermès menswear shows.
Nichanian was appointed menswear designer at Hermès in 1988 by then-chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas. Her successor, British designer Grace Wales Bonner, was announced earlier this month and is expected to present her first menswear collection for the house in January 2027. The interim June collection will be overseen by the Hermès in-house design team.
Hermès womenswear remains under the direction of Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski, who has led the line since 2014.