French luxury house Hermes released its 2020 autumn/winter collection recently in its Shanghai store. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Commenting on the theme, Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermes, said, "Whether in the literal or figurative sense, innovative gestures are at the heart of what we do in our house.

"Innovative gestures are a bit tautological where Hermes is concerned. All too often we picture the artisan as engaged in a process of doing the same thing time and time again. However, this image equates the artisan with a machine and ignores the profoundly free, poetic and unpredictable nature of his or her action.

"Machines may carry out virtual or real programs but, in ways unlike the human beings who conceive them. Only human beings are endowed with that aptitude which Rousseau called perfectibility. "