Now that travel restrictions have eased, it becomes opportune to celebrate luxury fashion’s unsurpassed and original travel set — the Hermès Haut à Courroies — as creative director Véronique Nichanian continues to innovate the House’s foundational bag for the 21st century whilst celebrating the House’s long-standing emphasis for ease of movement.
Hermès menswear collections have always emphasised a steady calm, like the first moment one opens one’s windows on a clear Sunday morning. In the Summer, clean neutral palettes twinkle with the grace of sunlight bouncing off the window, easing one into options that breeze lightly through its clothes, as if allowing the natural environment of the outdoors to take center stage. For Winter, silk-soft leather whispers a childlike gentleness blooming in a delicate aura, dissolving tough, protective materials to the wit of putting on a second skin that melds with movement — a word one will soon learn to be the genesis of all its designs considerations.
Across these collections, creative director Véronique Nichanian has maintained a focus on ease in her 30-year-long legacy at the House. Never should one feel restrained and out-of-place with her designs — even its advertising campaigns flutter with peacefulness and a sense of living. It is, indeed, a lust for life.
For Hermès, its team of creatives has long understood that the most vigorous moments are reserved for travel and moving because after all, the notion of moving from one place to another is inherently part of the human experience. While most designers have always toyed with the essentiality of travel within its leather goods varieties, none do it better than Hermès.
Its origins, like some of luxury’s largest players, have always evoked visions of travel, distant lands, and speed. The House best explains this through the creation of harnesses that were so delicate they released the horse from all constraints in an effort for total freedom of movement.
Its foundational years were quick to adapt to changing lifestyles and uses, and at the beginning of the 20th century, Hermès unveiled its first travel bag — the Haut à Courroies. It diverted from its equestrian use to accompany the transition from the era of horse-drawn carriages to the age of the motor car and of transatlantic crossings, outlying the many heirs that the brand would conjure that we so love today.
The Haut à Courroies, also known as the HAC, is the root of all Hermes bags known today. Its intentions were to make life easier for riders by enabling them to transport their boots and saddle in style. With the arrival of the motor car, this trapezium-shaped model with a sculptural look was reappropriated as a travel bag. It retained its straps — its name translates to High Belt in English — which held the saddle flaps in place, as well as its emblematic burnished flap, swivel clasp, padlock, clochette, and sangles.
A bag full of character with variable proportions, the Haut à Courroies lends itself to all interpretations in an infinite array of materials, whether raw or printed canvas, leather and felt, or Volynka leather reminiscent of Russian leather.
Today, Nichanian continues to innovate the House’s foundational bag for the 21st century. The Haut à Courroies appeared in the Spring Summer 2022 collection as the Hac à dos, a backpack variant that reinterprets details like the burnished flap and the swivel clasp while providing freedom of movement when worn over the shoulder or across the body in part to its adjustable strap.
For Fall Winter 2022, the Haut à Courroies appeared as a smooth leather technical haven refitted with a plethora of compartments on its exposed case, as though evoking the same functionality of the classic leather motorcycle jacket.
Back before the word “pandemic” entered our daily vocabulary, the departure halls of any major international airport were, unofficially, the place where the most luxurious designer bags could be spotted at.
As travel restrictions have appeared to near its end, the Hermes Haut à Courroies, with its pristinely arranged function and size, is the House’s most satisfying statement of purpose. Its new creative sweet spots will flutter into the frame as travel’s most important companion in the ensuing months.
This story about the Hermès Haut à Courroies first appeared in our May 2022 issue. Once you’re done reading it, click here to catch up with our May 2022 issue!
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