New-look Céline isn’t confusing

Not liking Céline Dion is so 1997.

Back around the time La Dion was conquering the world with that Titanic song — My Heart Will Go On — it was cool to diss Quebec’s most famous singer. But that was then, this is now.

Since at least the summer of 2016, when Dion was photographed wearing that oversized Vetements hoodie with Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet on it, the cool kids have been saying that Dion is part of their scene and they’re right. By the spring of 2017, no less a trendsetter than Drake himself called Dion “very iconic” and two years later, she’s been lauded by everyone from pop stars to fashion columnists for being one of a kind.

My fellow columnist Lise Ravary this week suggested many are confused by the new Céline, going as far as to argue that loads of folks in Quebec don’t like the new “liberated” Céline Dion (Ravary’s quotation marks). My take on this is that if you’re confused by the new-look Céline, that’s a good thing because it means the 51-year-old pop diva is messing with your head and in today’s cookie-cutter popular culture, that’s always welcome.

And if some in la belle province don’t like the liberated Dion — I don’t think the word needs quotation marks — then I’d suggest those people maybe just don’t like strong, unique women who take control of their lives, women who couldn’t give a hoot if some have a problem with that kind of 21st-century feminism. At her appearance/handbag launch at the Browns shoe store on Ste-Catherine St. in the summer of ’17, Dion made it clear she understood that she’s living an emancipation story.

“Let me be clear, c’est moi le boss,” she said that day. “I’m not playing bossy. I am the boss.”

This transformation of Dion has happened mostly via her wild fashion statements rather than in her music. She has been creating mega buzz at the annual July Paris Couture Week for three consecutive years. This year, her outfits included a Chanel unitard with a gold logo belt, an Attico pink-feathered tube top and a Gucci ensemble that featured a peppermint and white minidress, lace tights and a bondage collar with silver spikes. Did I mention that she arrived wearing that last eye-catching outfit riding an electric scooter?

“Nothing is too much for me,” Dion said in a recent interview with Elle Canada. “I have nothing to lose. I get into my character; it’s art. You can’t please everybody. Fashion doesn’t scare me — it excites me and transforms me.”

Those of us who have spent time with Dion offstage always knew she had a quirky personality, but her husband and manager René Angélil always went to great lengths to showcase a more buttoned-down Dion in public. But it didn’t always work, like when she turned up at the Oscars in 1999 with that backward John Galliano tuxedo. The infamous “take a kayak” interview with Larry King was also a moment when the real Dion popped out of the Crackerjack box.

It was roundly lampooned, but go back and watch the video. Dion actually takes a tough political stand, saying the government isn’t doing enough for the people in New Orleans suffering from the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

But mostly she stuck to the script, until two or three years ago. Now she’s having fun and she couldn’t care less if some columnists or fans are left a little mystified.