Nadège Vanhée

Nadège Vanhée is artistic director at Hermès overseeing women’s ready-to-wear, a position she has held since 2014. She has been entrusted by the French leather-craft specialist with the launching of its haute couture, which debuts in January 2027.

Born in northern France in 1978 to a French father and an Algerian mother, Vanhée studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp followed by the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, finishing a post-graduate degree in 2004. She kicked off her career at Maison Martin Margiela, working on the womenswear design team, and later moved to Celine, where she was senior designer under creative director Phoebe Philo. In 2011, she took up womenswear design at The Row in New York.

Vanhée is known for slim, polished silhouettes – often in leather but also including the house’s signature, patterned silk as well as equestrian references like decorative leather straps and riding boots. She has steered the historic label’s womenswear in a more seductive direction with cut-out dresses, slick biker jackets, leather trench coats and zippered skirts. Her styles have contributed to the growth of ready-to-wear sales at Hermès, which, including menswear (under a different designer), have expanded fourfold in the past dozen years, from around €1 billion to over €4 billion. Vanhée served as an International Woolmark Prize judge in 2022.

Over a dozen years in her role, Vanhée is one of the house’s longest-tenured design directors.