Bras and Bandeaus were all over the Spring 2021 runways. Lingerie continues to be a staple in wardrobes as long as they are done elegantly, minimal, or kitschy cool. “Breathing” new life into this market was the bandeau replacing the popular corset from last year. The bandeau dates back to Ancient Greece, where they were called apodesmos and were typically made from wool or linen.

Designer brands such as Hermès, Boss, Rick Owens, and Emilio Pucci did the bandeau offering minimal chic. Dior worked beautifully into the design of evening wear. And why not wear the bra on the outside such as Simone Rocha, Sacai, Drome, Koche, and Simonetta Ravizza.

The bandeau dates back to Ancient Greece, where they were called apodesmos and were typically made from wool or linen.

BRAS AND BANDEAUS SPRING 2021 FASHION TREND

French fashion label Hermès is collaborating with crocodile farming veteran Mick Burns to buy a farm in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, and build it into the country’s biggest crocodile factory farm.

PRI Farming, a foreign-controlled company with three key executives from Hermès, acquired the former melon and banana horticulture farm at Lambells Lagoon. The planned facility would be able to house 50,000 saltwater crocodiles, who will be farmed for skin and meat products. The development costs are reported to be around AU$40 million.

The sheer size of the Hermés-backed factory farm would increase the number of farmed crocodiles in the Northern Territory by 50%, according to the ABC.

The ABC report says documents submitted by Burns about the proposed farm reveal facilities that include an egg incubator lab, hatchery, growing pens, refrigerated feed preparation, and storage areas. Approximately 30 people will be employed during full-production, bringing the number of crocodiles from 4,000 in its second year to 50,000 in its fifth.

Apart from Hermès, Louis Vuitton is said to be the other French fashion brand dominating crocodile farming in the region. ABC reported that the handbags made from these crocodile skins could be worth $20,000 to $30,000.

PETA is calling on Hermès to stop fuelling the crocodile skin industry. Its US arm is a shareholder for Hermès to discuss the issue further. Speaking to The Vegan Review, PETA Director Elisa Allen explained why brands are moving away from such products: “Exotic skins are falling out of favour with high-end fashion brands. Labels such as Mulberry, Paul Smith, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, and Diane von Furstenberg have all banned exotic skins in recent years.

“As experts warn that the trade may be connected to public health risks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear that the way we exploit other animals isn’t just cruel and environmentally damaging – it’s dangerous to humans as well.”

She added that there are many vegan leather options available everywhere, made from apples, pineapples, cork, wine grapes, mango and cactus.

“Every PETA exposé of the exotic skins industry has shown that no matter where skins are sourced from — or the ‘standards’ touted by brands — highly intelligent, sensitive animals endure squalid imprisonment and a violent death,” said Allen. “From the moment they hatch, farmed crocodiles are denied everything that’s natural and important to them, confined to small concrete pens, and unable to swim free. When they’re killed, their snouts are bound and they’re electrocuted or shot and then stabbed in the neck to sever the spinal cord.

“PETA and our international affiliates will continue to urge brands to end their use of exotic skins in order to protect animals from a life of misery and a horrifying death. We’ll also continue to call on consumers to refuse to wear the skins of tormented animals and always choose vegan fashion.”

The state-of-the-art facility, used solely for harvesting skin and meat, will increase the number of farmed crocodiles in Australia's Northern Territory by some 50,000.

HERMÈS PLANS TO BUILD AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST CROCODILE FACTORY FARM

Among the strong looks were the red leather zippered jacket with bra and linen canvas flare skirt, the tan suede rolled collar coat and linen and silk sleeveless short dress and the simple rolled collar deerskin black dress. The backless stretch bodysuit paired with the flared lambskin skirt shown in the show in four different versions three times as one look and once with a coat in different color combinations – all black, all tan, nude and beige, orange and red – represented the key mood of the collection with the bodysuit ‘celebrates the body and also free the body’ and the leather skirt is shaped like a an artisan’s worker apron and the clasps are from the hardware for handbags. The black and white photograph on page 87 shot by Sam Rock of a model arching her back in front of a calm water of a lake and distant forest evoked this sense of freedom. 

This seasonal show included a masterpiece of extremely delicate leatherwork from the black and the tan mesh chain mail dresses in bricks of horn and fine lambskin where each strip of each are edged together and assembled in such a flawless manner.  This construction probably involved other métiers to collaborate with fashion – an outward manifestation and expression for this constant evolution of crafts inside the house. Innovation takes place when there are ideas and thoughts that traverse domains and departments or as suggested by a hand written note on page 115 “a gesture you had never before dared.”

Perhaps the only drawback of the show was its overly academic approach – the cuts are flawless, the materials are from the best suppliers, the craftsmanship is beyond perfection. Now, Hermès should be open to find ways to bridge this gap to the world of a younger generation globally to strike an emotional chord that can link this audience to the house’s ethos and the house’s perfect products delivered by first class artisans unrivalled anywhere in the world. Perhaps this process may lies in the getting young people to understand and embrace the fact that the innovation of crafts championed by the house is also at the heart of Hermès aesthetics. 

Fashion here is anchored by ‘know-how’, not by seasonal appearance. This younger generation of consumers may be less reluctant to accept terms like heritage and crafts but they know a great product and they know innovation. Chasing the next generation requires Hermès to speak in a new language one that the younger people can easily grasp. Remember in the TikTok era, their attention span is less than thirty seconds. Saying heritage and saying craftsmanship have little impact on how the young generation decides what brand to consume – it is shared values that will matter so much more. 

At Hermès, the seasonal fashion shows have less to do with the preoccupation of trends and so forth but the shows are a platform to bring forth the idea that fashion is just métier that requires constant innovation of its crafts.

Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski is a hugger. While she took the confinement period in stride—revisiting her old sketchbooks and notes-to-self from her time at the Royal Academy of Antwerp—the Hermès designer missed the human touch. “Well, look at us. Tactility has been taken away from us,” she pointed out during a socially distanced backstage session before her show. “I wanted the fantasy of touching. I think it’s important to keep that, somehow.” Vanhee-Cybulski expressed her ‘skin hunger’—as the media has so seedily dubbed the lockdown phenomenon—in a collection that played with the naked and the seductive from different angles; from the sensual to the strict.

The rigid lines of aprons had the faintest air of fetish, backed up more insistently by fishnet dresses chain-mailed from bricks of horn. (“Horn-y,” quipped a fellow critic in a text post-show.) Coats had built-in scarves that could be rolled up at the front or wrapped tactilely around the neck. Knitted bodies with swimwear-like open backs were informed by the female curves of Hellenic ceramics, a theme echoed in a show constructed like an abstract take on Ancient Greek ruins. On each of the digitalized columns, the work of different artists commissioned by Vanhee-Cybulski interpreted her collection in various art forms, which was also compiled in a ‘scrapbook’ sent to editors around the world, who couldn’t travel for the show.

“It was important to find a new way to communicate a collection. Because no one was able to travel, I just sent the clothes to the artists and they [worked with them] themselves,” she explained. After the pandemic forced her to cancel the London resort show she had planned in April, Vanhee-Cybulski decided to save the collection. “I said, we’re going to freeze what we have and settle a little bit. When we come back we will assess it.” Current affairs considered, it was the right thing to do. Fifty percent of the garments she showed today were part of that original collection, now unified in one strong message with the new pieces she created during and after lockdown. “The pandemic has reinforced our values about a responsible approach and a perennial style,” the designer said. “But of course, I still want to give fashion to the Hermès woman.”

If that was the brief she gave herself, Vanhee-Cybulski nailed it. These were enduringly seductive and viable clothes beyond the level of timelessness that comes with the Hermès territory, and with enough design value and cleverness to entice you runway-side. Sometimes her styling gestures gave you flashes of the collections she created with Martin Margiela at the house in the late 1990s; a legacy you sometimes felt evoked in Phoebe Philo’s work for Céline, too. There is still a demand from so many women for the intelligently seductive, chic, purposeful fashion Philo mastered there. 

Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that Vanhee-Cybulski’s show took place in the Tennis Club de Paris where the former Céline designer historically presented her collections.

These bags are named after the twentieth-century style icons. The most influential women in the world are ready to line up to possess them. Various myths are surrounding these bags. This article is about the legendary Birkin and Kelly models from Hermes fashion house.

In 1956, the Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, while being pregnant, got out of the car and covered a rounded tummy with a bag (then called Sac à Dépêches), hiding her pregnancy from the ubiquitous paparazzi. The very next day, a photo of a pregnant princess hit the cover of Life magazine and flew around the world. And the bag got its new name: Kelly.

The Birkin model is 50 years younger than its predecessor. Once in 1983, actress and singer Jane Birkin and Jean-Louis Dumas were on an Air France flight from Paris to London. Just five years ago, Dumas took the helm of Hermes, founded by his great-grandfather. It was a short flight, but the conversation that arose between Jean and Jane became fatal.

Jane accidentally dropped her Hermes diary on the floor and complained to Mr. Dumas that the leaflets were always getting lost, and the bag never had enough pockets to fit everything. Jean-Louis promised to help the actress and asked what would be the perfect bag for her? He got out of the plane with a preliminary sketch, which Jane Birkin drew on a napkin. Then the two met again at the Hermes premises, where Jane explained to the designers what exactly she wanted to see.

In the case of 'Birkin' and 'Kelly', Hermes took the path that ultimately led them to a tremendous demand for these bags. You will never find these two models on either their official website, or on the storefront. Hermes intentionally produce them in less quantity than there is a demand for them. To buy your own bag, you have to sign up on the waiting list and wait for it for at least nine months. The inaccessibility chosen by Hermes as a marketing strategy makes these bags the object of lust for millions of successful women.

The inaccessibility chosen by Hermes as a marketing strategy makes these bags the object of lust for millions of successful women.

BIRKIN AND KELLY: NAMED AFTER TWO TWENTIETH-CENTURY STYLE ICONS

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