Nadège Vanhée, also known as Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski, was born on 30 May 1978 in Seclin, near Lille in northern France. She studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, graduating in 2003, and then at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, which she completed in 2004.
Her career has been spent in some of the most rigorous studios in modern fashion. After working for the Belgian leather-goods house Delvaux, she joined Maison Martin Margiela, where she worked from 2005 to 2008. She then moved to Céline, joining the team around Phoebe Philo as the house was being rebuilt into the reference point for intelligent, pared-back womenswear. In 2011 she went to New York as design director of The Row, the label founded by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, where she remained until 2014.
In the summer of 2014 Hermès named her artistic director of women's ready-to-wear, succeeding Christophe Lemaire. She was relatively unknown outside the industry, and the Guardian described her at the time as the quiet designer; the label suited both her and the house, which has always preferred substance to noise. Her first collection was shown in Paris in March 2015.
More than a decade later she has become one of the longest-serving women's designers at a major Paris house. Her Hermès is grounded in the house's material culture: leather treated as supple as cloth, equestrian references worked into tailoring and outerwear, silk used with lightness, and an understated colour palette lifted by the house's oranges and reds. Critics have often noted that the clothes are made to be worn and lived in rather than photographed, a sensibility that sits naturally with Hermès's emphasis on craft and longevity.
Her collections have drawn on themes ranging from the open countryside to the sporting body, and her shows, frequently staged at the Garde Républicaine and other Paris venues associated with horses, reflect the house's roots as a saddler. She has worked in close dialogue with the house's leather, silk and accessories métiers and with Pierre-Alexis Dumas, the artistic director general of Hermès.
Her Spring 2027 collection, presented on 3 October 2026 at the Garde Républicaine, was conceived around the idea of air: sheer knits, silk mesh, perforated and strip-cut leather, adjustable zips and parka-inspired dresses, in a palette moving from cream and icy blue through camel and grey to sunflower yellow, red and the house orange. She continues as artistic director of women's ready-to-wear, alongside Grace Wales Bonner, who will present her first Hermès menswear collection in January 2027.