In Bel Air, Hermès women’s designer Nadège Vanhée shows her most glamorous collection yet, putting the French maison in the red carpet running. Zegna turns the Malibu Pier into a men’s runway. H. Lorenzo’s new guard fashion flagship bows on Robertson and “Fashioning Chinese Women” opens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Hermès Goes Hollywood Glam
Julia Louis-Dreyfus cozied up to Melinda French Gates in the front row, Natasha Lyonne slid in at the very last minute and Miley Cyrus shimmied in her seat to the finale song “Bette Davis Eyes.”
There was star power aplenty at the Hermès Fall 2026 “Chapter Two” show in Bel Air last week. Both off the runway and on it too, with women’s artistic director Nadège Vanhée showing her most glamorous collection to date, and one that felt very L.A.
The hilltop location just above the Hotel Bel-Air made for some logistical headaches. But the cinematic golden-hour vantage point made up for the long wait for golf carts and shuttles.
The event had been in the works for a year, and the show’s pavilion structure was built over the course of a month. Bathed in golden-hour yellow paint, or jaune flave, the set ushered in a softer vision of Hermès ready-to-wear.
Since 2024, the brand has been taking its women’s RTW collection on the road, stopping in New York, Shanghai and now L.A., with each destination informing the designer’s work.
For this chapter, Vanhée zeroed in on the dress, specifically a gorgeous strapless duchesse satin design that seemed destined for the red carpet. Signaling a new direction for the leather-centric house, the dress came in several colors, including rouge tango, modeled by Karen Elson. All were styled with super-chic matching satin evening boots, which feel like a trend in the making.
The propositions for glam nights continued with fluid gowns in velvet or scattered with starry embroidery, jewel-tone silk coats and suiting.
Meanwhile, the elements of practice and performance inherent to Hollywood came through as Vanhée drew inspiration from the world of dance, touching on rehearsal wear with side-tie silhouettes and groovy sparkly-knit jumpsuits with flared legs. (Groovy and Hermès are two words I never thought would meet.)
The house’s signature leather was reimagined with a lighter touch, as buttery blousons layered over sensual velvet dresses, for example, while Western-detailed, boxy zip-front jackets with matching shorts felt very L.A. rock ’n’ roll.
The event underscored the reality that the U.S., even with all its troubles, is a key market for luxury brands navigating the industry slowdown, though it should be said that Hermès is already doing much better than most. The show followed L.A. destination presentations from Dior at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Gucci and Louis Vuitton in New York in the last few weeks.
The U.S., specifically L.A., is also the celebrity-fashion power center, of course, and the night’s lineup of dressier looks made it clear that Hermès is getting more serious about Hollywood dressing.
Several celebrities have been priming the pump, with director Chloé Zhao wearing a Spring 2026 Hermès bodycon dress at Cannes last month, actor Toheeb Jimoh choosing a sleek pinstriped Spring 2026 Hermès men’s suit for a screening of “Sheep in the Box” at Cannes, and Cyrus donning a glossy black Hermès coat at the iHeartRadio Music Awards back in March.
Adding to the celebrity dressing potential, there’s already a lot of anticipation for what’s next in Hermès menswear with British designer Grace Wales Bonner taking the reins–and making history as the first Black woman to lead a major European fashion house. Her first show will be in January 2027.
Zegna Does Malibu Without the Clichés
Ermenegildo Zegna turned the Malibu Pier into a runway on Friday night, bringing a taste of the Med to the Pacific with its Spring 2027 show.
Silver-haired style setter Stellan Skarsgård, Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson, Rami Malek, Mahershala Ali, Paul Dano and many more from the Hollywood set took their seats in beach chairs for the parade of luxe leisurewear from Italian designer Alessandro Sartori.
The Italian art of villeggiatura, or escaping — truly escaping — to the seaside for the summer season, was Sartori’s starting point for what he does best: a relaxed but refined lineup, one that would be right at home at Nobu just down the PCH.
Soft tailoring and stripes were the foundations of the collection. Shirt jackets, safari jackets, duster coats and beachy cardigans were casually layered over shorts, while terry-cloth pullovers and color-blocked windbreakers offered more overt nautical references. Blazers with adjustable belts and shirts with interchangeable collars underscored the functional aspect of the clothes.
The palette was surf-and-sand, and ease was the prevailing mood, but never at the expense of elegance. Instead, the designer explored how summer dressing can look spontaneous and polished at the same time, taking on coastal L.A. without falling into palm-tree and surfboard clichés.
“I wanted to express a Zegna take on summer,” Sartori said. “Our vision of leisure dressing is rooted in a cultivated attitude and a discerning gaze that is profoundly Italian, yet open to the world.”
H. Lorenzo’s New Guard Flagship
Fashion’s new guard is alive and well at the new H. Lorenzo flagship on Beverly Boulevard. The 9,000-square-foot, gallery-like space is a garden of edgy delights from hard-to-find and up-and-coming global and L.A. brands. There’s Paris-based enfants terribles Matières Fécales, who created Sarah Paulson’s memorable “One Percent” Met Gala gown; London-based goth designer Dilara Findikoglu, who recently collaborated with Khy after Kylie Jenner’s stylist discovered the designer here; and Paly Hollywood, whose art-to-wear pieces are co-designed by James Franco.
One of L.A.’s formative fashion boutiques, H. Lorenzo was a Sunset Boulevard institution for 42 years. It was founded by Lorenzo Hadar, who helped bring cutting-edge European and Japanese clothing to L.A. in the 1980s — literally — beginning with a “cash-and-carry” model that saw him bringing Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons pieces back in his suitcase to sell to customers.
The store’s reputation grew, attracting a who’s who of celebrities over the decades, from James Brown and Michael Jackson to Tupac Shakur, Drake, Cardi B and Justin Bieber. It also became a go-to destination for stylists and costume designers looking for the newest looks, including Ruth E. Carter and Euphoria costume designer Natasha Newman-Thomas.
Now, Lorenzo’s son Mac Hadar is heading the business day to day, and the store has relocated to Beverly and Robertson boulevards. “We wanted to inject new energy into the company and just evolve,” Mac said on a busy Wednesday afternoon at the store, as shoppers rolled in for Paly hoodies and Sekrit Saints leather jackets, trying things on and pronouncing them “fire” and “cool as f–k.”
“We try to add at least a 15 to 20 percent new brand mix to our roster every season … and be one step ahead of the curve,” said Mac, who also merchandises H. Lorenzo’s archive store on Santa Fe Avenue in downtown L.A., curating 40 years of vintage so it feels relevant to the moment.
The flagship was designed in collaboration with Italian architect Oliviero Arch Baldini, who has created all the H. Lorenzo stores. It’s minimal, but packs a punch.
“We love the racking system in this space. It feels like there is a lot of metal, but with the clothing on it, it almost floats,” said Mac, explaining that the front of the store is intended to be a rotating design installation, starting with a Japanese curation of custom tatami tables, hand-painted fans, pottery and other objets d’art, all of which are for sale.
On the racks and shelves, shoppers can find Elena Velez’s wasteland-cool sweats, Chopova Lowena’s punky princess skirts, Kapitol’s cult-favorite Japanese-Americana workwear jackets, Doublet’s moss-embroidered jeans, Stephen Jones’ haute hats, Maison Margiela’s tabi shoes and Ashley Williams’ surreal paper roll bracelets.
Mac is also envisioning the new, larger space as a community space—and it already has been, hosting the kickoff for an exclusive collaboration with Ann Demeulemeester last month. “We wanted to introduce the space before it was open,” Mac said. “And we’re planning on doing things like movie screenings and activations that bring people together in ways beyond just a clothing drop with a DJ.”
H. Lorenzo, 8801 Beverly Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90048
Rare Exhibition of Chinese Fashion Opening at LACMA
Opening June 14 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity” is a rare showcase of Chinese fashion in the U.S., dazzling with textiles and embroidery so exquisite they have to be seen IRL, as well as stories of cross-cultural influence and trailblazing 3D-printed mannequins created by designer Jason Wu to represent Chinese physiques, hairstyles and skin tones.
The exhibition is also rare in that it is largely based on a single collection donated to the museum by Berkeley-based Chinese American artist Chere Lai Mah, who spent more than four decades preserving garments belonging to her mother, mother-in-law and other relatives who traveled regularly between Fresno, Calif., and Hong Kong to buy their clothing.
Augmented with pieces from the museum’s permanent collection, “Fashioning Chinese Women” includes 70 garments tracing the evolution of Chinese dress within China, from the loose, densely embroidered and decorated robes of the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) to the sleek qipaos of Republican Shanghai (1912–1949) and the globally influential cheongsams of postwar Hong Kong.
The show touches on how political reforms brought narrower silhouettes, while global trade and imported materials led to textile innovations, including Art Deco-inspired machine lace and devoré velvets.
The exhibition explores the rise of the qipao as a symbol of modern Chinese fashion during the mid-20th century, when tailors refined the silhouette using Western dressmaking techniques. Among the highlights are two 1949 versions sewn by Susan Mah herself, made from whimsical mid-century California rayon fabrics that reflect her dual Chinese American identity, and three bold, colorful, 1960s-era graphic knee-length cheongsam shift dresses from the fashionable wardrobe of socialite Aileen Chiang Pei, stepmother of architect I. M. Pei.
The show also touches on historical figures who shaped how Chinese dress was perceived and copied abroad, including Anna May Wong, the Hollywood actress who brought Chinese glamour to the silver screen and into the public consciousness in the 1920s, and the stylish First Lady of the Republic of China, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who wore a modernized qipao on her 1943 goodwill tour to America and helped raise the visibility of Chinese Americans, including speaking to a capacity crowd at the Hollywood Bowl.
“Fashioning Chinese Women: Empire to Modernity,” June 14–Oct. 12, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036.
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