Ski Slope, Dreamscape

“We need rationality in our lives,” Francis Mallmann says before a glittering crowd assembled in a glass pavilion outside of Aspen, Colorado. “But there’s a moment, in all of our lives, when rationality meets romance.”

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Moments before, aperitifs had been served al fresco around one of the chef’s famous bell-shaped scaffoldings from which he hangs all manner of meat and vegetables over an open fire—a dramatic installation on this evening in front of a snowy landscape in the blue dusk. Now inside, as he prepares the gathering for a feast, Mallmann has just cracked open a salt crust in which he’d baked a whole salmon in hot coals. “And I say,” he continues, “we must always choose the romance. I choose romance every time.”

Mallmann and his salmon were part of the grand finale of Hermès Winter Camp, as it was called, a two-day winter getaway for the artistic directors of the Hermès men’s universe. The adventure was a chance for the maison to showcase its work in a more festive, less formal manner than the traditional fashion show format. It was also an opportunity for it to engage with writers, creatives, and premier clientele during an itinerary that included scavenger hunting, skiing, snowshoeing, and a couple of late nights at Hotel Jerome’s late-night bar. Perhaps artistic director Véronique Nichanian put it best: “We’re on vacation!” Not that it is so easy for her to make the distinction between on the clock and off, she admits. During their time in the Rockies, she and her colleagues “don’t speak so much about work,” she explains. “We speak about wine, snow, and friendship, the important things. Traveling is always such an inspiration, giving you new ideas even when you aren’t looking.”

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Of course, the ski town has a strong tradition of bringing people together from disparate disciplines—the Aspen Ideas Festival, based at the Bauhaus-minded Aspen Institute, is thought of as a sort of Davos for intellectuals—to think outside of the box, to take a bit of a break, perhaps, from rationality in pursuit of romantic ideas. But, as Nichanian says, that romance is pretty well-baked into everything she does. “When you are a creative person, you are always dreaming of what can be better.”

In her 36 years in the position, Nichanian has only visited the French fashion house’s archives a few times. She prefers to look forward in order to interrogate the ways in which we live now and bring modern sensibilities into her collections. But if that is her philosophy, the guiding principle is pure joy; the playful pleasure she takes in color, form, and texture is present everywhere in her garments. “You have to create something fun and give people beautiful things in their life—beautiful clothes, beautiful colors, beautiful objects,” she says.

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In person, that positivity is immediate. Nichanian is quick to laugh, eager to invite others to join her in the fun, and seemingly curious about everyone and everything she comes in contact with. “I think life is beautiful,” she says. “Designing collections, I love that. It’s been my passion since I was a child.”

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At Hermès’ office in Paris, and in its workshop in the suburban commune of Pantin, Nichanian and her team are given complete creative freedom, she says. If anything, they seem to only feel a responsibility to continue the legacy of their august, family-owned company in seeking out the finest artisans and craftspeople in the world. Not long ago, for example, Nichanian and Christophe Goineau, Hermès’ creative director of men’s silks, traveled to Nepal in search of the greatest cashmere weavers in the world. (They say they found them and are now working with them, of course.)

As a writer growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, I thought Hermès ties had a very glamorous, even literary appeal, but they’ve never felt cooler to me than they are now. When I suggest that to Goineau, fresh off the Aspen slopes, he nods enthusiastically. “My father once told me, ‘Okay, so wear this tie with that,’” Goineau remembers. “‘Never wear dots with a striped shirt...’ Now, there are no rules. We don’t have any obligations. We wear for pleasure... We wear to express something,” he says, marveling at the creativity of the young people he sees wearing his creations—even when circumstances or etiquette don’t quite call for them. He adds: “The collection is much more interesting now than ever before.”

If Goineau and Nichanian are, at least notionally, tethered to garments and accessories, their colleague and the third member of this creative trio, Axel de Beaufort, is completely in blue sky. The only real limitation placed on Hermès Horizons—the completely bespoke imaginarium that de Beaufort heads—is the creativity of his clientele. An Hermès yacht? Easy. An original interior for your Ferrari? Your house? Give it a whirl. “We try to encourage dreams and encourage people to understand what they want,” says de Beaufort, who trained as a naval architect and designer, and who may or may not be working on the new ocean vessel of iconic former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive. Sporting windswept hair and the suntan of a sailor—and maybe a bit of the poetry, too—he explains that the process “is initially a service, but it’s limitless, like a good film.” Maybe his only boundary, he says, is “to remain authentic” to the house and its storied manufacturing pedigree, to its history of artisanship and reputation for making heirlooms that will span generations of owners.

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Just as de Beaufort’s Horizons is an experiential kind of collection—most recently, a jukebox, a surfboard like you’ve never seen before, and, coincidentally, a set of alpine skis—so too was Hermès’ gathering in Aspen. It was an invitation from the artistic directors into their worlds, to better explore some of their creations in a 3-D, tactile way, and perhaps show us what is possible: to choose romance. “In this amazing place with the lake and the beautiful woods,” Nichanian says, “it is a dream, really.”