At Work With: Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski

When Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski was named artistic director of Hermès’ women’s ready-to-wear in 2014, she disrupted an all-male lineage at the French luxury maison that ran through Christophe Lemaire, Jean Paul Gaultier and Martin Margiela. She also had kept a relatively low profile, having previously worked behind the scenes at Maison Martin Margiela and Céline, and then for three years as women’s design director at The Row.

But the French-born designer, who trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, doesn’t seem easily flappable. Her gentle manner is paired with firm confidence, whether she’s pairing trainers with swimsuits at work or enjoying bad movies as much as art house ones at home.

When did you know you wanted to work in fashion?
I think design has always been considered a very noble job, but 25 years ago fashion was not as popular as it is today, so I came to it gradually. As a young woman I think you really educate yourself through your circle of friends. I see fashion as cultural and anthropological—I like to see the way different civilizations have embedded their specificity through costumes or tailoring or embellishment. And I felt a great affinity with the Antwerp school, because they were offering a really demanding program: crafting a collection, different passerelles [bridges] between disciplines…
I felt drawn to this type of education.

Did you make your own clothes when you were younger?
No, I was more of a stylist. My best friend and I would spend Saturdays at different vintage stores and flea markets, and then we would dress up. When I started to feel more comfortable with garment construction, I would alter my own clothes.

Recently, there was an exhibition exploring Margiela’s work during his Hermès years. How would you present your Hermès years, if you could?
I am too young to do a retrospective… but what I’m obsessed with in the Hermès wardrobe is definitely the silk. The silk shirt really comes from transforming a silk scarf, and I would love to do an exhibition about that. And the exceptional leather pieces are a red thread for me: super-thin leather trench coats, or beautiful dresses that are half-leather, half-tweed.

What is your relationship to the Hermès archives—do you dip in regularly?
When you go to the archives, there is a core of strong ideas: the perfect coat, the little leather jacket. I absorbed it fast. But they don’t “haunt” me at all—au contraire. They’re like Ali Baba’s cave. You always fall on something with a layer of delicate imagination, which is not something we necessarily associate with Hermès.

Some of Hermès’ designs, like the smiley-faced Mangeoire bag, are so unexpected and funny. Have you intentionally tried to mix things up?
When you design you are not imposing, you are influencing. There are definitely some strong stereotypes about Hermès, which are not created by the house. But the house is alive—what I want to reveal with my work is its modernity through my collections.

How does the equestrian history fit into your design thinking?
I have a strong personal connection to nature that is reflected in the AW18 collection. You can take on the equestrian influences in a traditional way and really indulge in gorgeous double-faced cashmere, or you can do it in a modern way, where you use technical fabrics and develop clothes that relate to the spirit of the outdoors with strong, functional outerwear.

The fashion community is very international, but Hermès’ French heritage is clearly quite important. How do you balance those two things?
There is definitely something French about it because we work with French artisans; you can recognize a certain style. Thirty, forty years ago, it was easy to look at someone and say “Oh, you’re from here,” but today the borders are blending.

Do you like the rhythm of fashion? The industry shifts so quickly. This is happening everywhere. If you look, how many art fairs are there a year? How many movies do you see? You open Netflix and you see 6,000 new series. The creative rhythm has been accelerated. Writers need to finish a book in two months because they have to launch it before the holidays because that’s the best time… It asks too much. I’m living it, and always have. I do four strong collections a year. But when you’re a creative person, you have to learn to react quickly.

What are some non-fashion references that have influenced your aesthetic?
It’s strange, the creative process. I often think about the artist Josef Albers and his approach at Black Mountain College. It was about how you educate a soul: through listening to music, studying architecture… he was really broad. I’m not into stereotypes, but I’m also not afraid of bad taste.

Do you have any art practices on the side?
Lately, I have developed a really strong connection with my iPad [laughs]. I collect a lot of images, and also draw with my finger.

Does fashion have a place in the ongoing conversation about female empowerment?
I always laugh when people say “Oh, I should be feminine.” What is that? Is it to show your décolleté? In each era, there was a way to dress to reflect femininity, and also to own the body. But we have to be careful, because feminism is actually very serious, and you don’t want it to become too much of a trend. Fashion has been a weird weakness of feminism—it has both constrained and liberated women.

How have you adapted your style as you’ve moved between fashion houses?
I look at a maison as a person. You have to understand its psychology. At Céline, with Phoebe Philo, it was about being extremely radical: How can we have a strong color-silhouette identity? At The Row, the job was to really reveal the vision of Mary-Kate and Ashley [Olsen], creating this American elegance. With Hermès, I want it to arouse a dream, but somehow be approachable.

It’s hard to do both!
It is—it’s a bit contradictory. For instance, when I arrived, [shoe designer] Pierre Hardy said: “Why not do trainers for the second show?” So we did a swimsuit with trainers. It’s about bringing a more casual vocabulary to a silhouette, just loosening up the wardrobe a little bit.

As the designer, do you imagine yourself as a hypothetical user?
There are designers who say, “I would never wear this.” I try to imagine different morphologies: for a petite woman, a rounder woman. I try to be comprehensive. It’s almost like being a filmmaker and having all your characters.