The old showbiz axiom that “all good things come in threes” gained enhanced confirmation over the weekend in the form of Hermès’s Women’s Fall/Winter 2021 collection. A tripartite affair, the presentation was presented in three acts—“the triptych,” the brand dubbed it—with simultaneous presentations kicking off in New York, Paris, and Shanghai.

The New York iteration of the film was appropriately minimalist. The Park Avenue Armory transformed to a lavish and capacious performance space with a highly reflective obsidian surface over which a troupe of choreographed models showed off pieces in subtle hues of black and dark brown to accentuate silhouettes—tight, narrow tops gave way to billowing, flaring pants highlighted by models’ twirling movements underneath elegant Hermès Orange curtains.

In Paris, models strutted down, around, and through stacked orange cylinders in crimson and light brown suits, abutted and accented by green tops—the second act felt decidedly more runway than its sister city performances.

For its final act, a venture further east to Shanghai, where modern dancers ran around, leapt on, crawled by, and pushed and pulled orange boxes (and sometimes each other) in a complex choreographic performance in front of a live audience. Nadége Vanhee-Cybulski, the French house’s creative director, wanted the performance to feel both live and compelling, telling Vogue.com: “It’s urgent now to live again.”