Hedi Slimane‘s answer to those who keep saying he is leaving Celine is the new men’s collection. If it is going to be the farewell collection, then we will find out. Because according to rumours, his fate is hanging by a thread, but in the meantime he is presenting off the calendar, and with a melancholic film shot in the Mojave desert. The film that seems to foretell the future, but is yet another manifesto of Slimane’s style, which has now become one with that of the brand.
A world that only exists in films
A fashion statement also asserted in his latest work. “Symphonie fantastique”, as the collection is titled, recalls the symphony composed by Hector Berlioz in 1830. By quoting the work, Slimane pays homage to the troubled love story that inspired the French composer. But above all, the intention is to emphasise his being an outsider. Just as the symphony signified extreme modernity according to the critics of the time, so Slimane’s work today represents a different vision that wants to look to the future.
To start with, the circumstances of the presentation. Celine has accustomed us, since Slimane has been creative director, to presenting collections outside the official calendar. And then the content. The film is set in the Mojave desert, we were saying. That is, in a space that seems to be at the edge of the world: with a tongue of asphalt in the middle of the sand (Route 66), large canyons in the background and four vintage Cadillacs. In that desert, Slimane’s idea of a man paraded, once again revised according to the rules of English tailoring, inspired by the 1960s and the cowboy aesthetic.
Is this the farewell fashion show?
At first glance, the new collection might seem dissonant in its juxtaposition of opposites. Instead, Slimane alternates the magnificence of the landscape with the severity of the clothes. Forty-three looks paraded in the desert, almost all black and interrupted only by a few white shirts, a few sequined or crystal looks and a glittering coat. The style is based on English sartorial perfection, contaminated in the designer’s vision by leather bomber jackets with a strong character and by jackets, also in leather, combined with tight trousers.
A collection that recounts all of Celine’s codes, monopolised by Hedi Slimane over the last six years, and which the creative director claims in each release. A period in which the brand has strongly characterised itself, and which now risks finding itself orphaned of its spearhead. Because Slimane has certainly taken Celine’s sales to unprecedented heights, but he has also imprinted a new face on the brand, which has become in the designer’s own image and has thus in a sense become blurred. The new collection could be a diversionary manoeuvre. Or a painful farewell. Either way, what comes next will be painful.
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