CELINE: THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL SHOW OF PARIS FASHION WEEK
Yes, we saw micro hot pants, dandelion wigs and (more) cycling shorts, but there were also beautiful clothes for the real world. Rebecca Lowthorpe decodes the Paris collections
AS PARIS FASHION WEEK drew to a close last week, everyone was still talking about the most provocative and divisive show of the season. When Hedi Slimane sent forth crotch-skimming dresses and whippet-thin tailoring on a cast of sulky, equally whippet-thin young models, it was the visual equivalent of a cold, hard slap in the face – at least that’s how it felt to many in the heat of the moment. Its message seemed to be that grown-up women don’t matter. We reject your bodies – your lumps and bumps. You’re too old to shop here. We don’t want you. Or your money.
Overnight, Slimane became the fashion terminator who annihilated Céline – having controversially removed the accent on the é in September, seven months after he took over at the house. Phoebe Philo, his predecessor, who left the brand in December, had nurtured a grown-up, hyper-understated minimalism that represented the ultimate in luxury fashion for the professional woman. Slimane’s single-minded, youth-focused aesthetic was everything Philo’s was not. Gleefully so – his debut show opened with a drum roll, rapped out by the Republican Guard. Did it smack of arrogance? Yes. Did much of the audience fall silent as if in shock? You bet. Did Instagram thunder with a downpour of criticism? Absolutely. Did women descend on the store in Avenue Montaigne like locusts snapping up Old Céline as if their life depended on it? Yes.
The scale of emotion that erupted over a mere fashion brand changing tack was interesting and unusual. We’ve long seen brands renovated from top to bottom by incoming designers – Balenciaga, Dior, Gucci and even old Céline. Why, when it was thoroughly expected of Hedi Slimane to do Hedi Slimane, did his actions spark such a reaction? After all, we’d seen it all before. He served up an identical aesthetic at Saint Laurent (removing the Yves before driving up sales from €400 million to €1 billion). And also in the early 2000s at Dior Homme, where he first became known for designing toothpick-sized suits for men that famously prompted Karl Lagerfeld to lose six stone. (Lagerfeld, a staunch Hedi supporter, was present on the front row next to Lady Gaga at his first Celine show.)
But that was then. Before #Metoo and #Timesup. Before fashion woke up to diversity and models spoke up for better working conditions. Before Trump. And before Christine Blasey Ford stood before
WHO WILL FILL THE PHOEBE BE VOID?
The candidates were stacking up as designers in Paris pitched to the Philophile sisterhood, the huge market of women prepared to pay top dollar for everything Philo designed. First out the gate, Jonathan Anderson at Loewe tempting us with his classy, intelligent woman who drifted around artworks in the UNESCO heritage building – carrying her own artworks in the form of multiple, crazily desirable bags like macramé totes, fringed leather, canvas, baskets, satchels. It was the most elegant take on Nouveaux Boho where everything had the feel of hand-craft yet filtered through uber-luxury.
Chloé’s cool chick had the same New Age Boho feel, having just returned from Ibiza and Morocco with a wardrobe full of long print dresses, a Persian rug coat, sculptural earrings and layers of pendant necklaces. Paco Rabanne’s Space Age goddess niftily escaped the 1960s chainmail stereotype and hit the modern hippie trail in brilliantly wearable earthy-toned psychedelic prints.
What of the Phoebe customers looking for discreet chic? They should head directly to Hermès, where the house’s signature orange and rich tan leathers were given a sporty twist. Or to Stella Mccartney, who also addressed the sport issue – ‘Just don’t call it athleisure,’ she groaned – with fabulous print cycling shorts ( still a thing in Paris) and great big roomy suits. For the minimalist Phoebe lover, you couldn’t do better than Dries Van Noten, where uplifting colour – power yellows and blues – tackled couture shapes for real life grown-ups. For minimalism with an artsy kick, try Sacai’s black and white section of Chitose Abe’s signature hybrids – part-jacketspart- capes-part-jumpers-part- aprons – which looks far less tricky than it sounds. And for the best Phoebe-esque trousers in town, it’s got to be Lemaire.