All About Hermès

The fashion world can feel, at times, like a carnival. Trust Hermès to fully realize that sentiment in a decadent spectacle, as it did Tuesday night at its All About Women event, hosted by the brand’s CEO Axel Dumas and its US president and CEO Robert Chavez as part of a roving party that has made previous stops in Shanghai and Paris. Created by the company’s women’s universe artistic director Bali Barret to showcase the expansive artistry involved in Hermès’s luxurious offerings, from its fragrances to its iconic silk scarves, the evening began in an unlikely spot: a former J.P. Morgan office building on Wall Street. The entrance to the building was marked with an equine sculpture covered in the Hermès scarf print Perspective Cavaliere and there were even more scarves inside, cloaking the ceilings and every available surface. Attendees first took in a runway show of Christophe Lemaire’s fall Hermès ready to wear collection on the building’s second floor. And then the real partying began.

Downstairs were installations representing every facet of the Hermès world. A tableau of white clad women boogying and singing while holding bags from the fall line was entitled, “Dancing Bags.” In another room, art students painted a model clad in layers of scarves (“Art of the Scarf”). A rec room that looked straight out of Mad Men had Brazilian Girls lead-singer Sabine Scuibba crooning (“Songs of Silk”), while nearby, a tiled space evoking a swimming pool had more dancing women, this time in green bathing suits (“A Bigger Splash”). Particularly popular was the “Silk Fortunes” room wherein a fortuneteller predicted willing participants’ futures based on their choice of scarves. “You are part of the evening. And you are part of Hermès,” he intoned to one woman who had chosen a Midnight in Paris silk piece. “And you are a superhero. Do you know that?”

As the “Bangle Bar,” an homage to house’s iconic enamel bracelet, doled out glass after glass of champagne guests played equine-themed pinball and a horse racing game in between posing in the Bandanas de Hermès photo booth, where revelers could mount a faux stallion with their choice of accessories. Hey, Martha Stewart was game…