If it’s trendy to be immersive, Hedi Slimane is à la mode. His menswear present for Celine concerned a takeover of the Paris nightspot Le Palace, the place on the opening night time again in 1978 Grace Jones had her garments torn off by the plastered crowd and was coated by Yves Saint Laurent, available with a well-placed cummerbund.
Downstairs, nearly 50 years later, the place was nonetheless fabulous and bedecked with sequins. With a trend present, gig and celebration, Slimane’s mission – together with exhibiting the garments for autumn 2023 – was to create a disco to die for, a playground for the period’s new membership children.
And, in fact, they got here, clad in dramatic appears – as an illustration, the experimental musician Yves Tumour, who was resplendent in a blue wig, outrageously embellished black leather-based jacket and fishnet stockings. In the meantime, the road exterior was closed in anticipation of the arrival of Lisa from Blackpink, Okay-pop’s greatest woman band.
Slimane’s expertise is to create a parallel universe during which trend, music and youth subcultures all come collectively to create a stunning complete. On Friday night time, first there was a trend present, then a live performance by the Irish band the Homicide Capital and the Libertines, after which a celebration that stretched till 3am, populated by the membership children of Paris who have been the night time’s actual stars, and a few celebrities starting from Catherine Deneuve to Wiz Khalifa. Firstly of the present, Pete Doherty induced some consternation by bringing his massive canine with him to the entrance row, however sadly the various TikTokers in attendance have been denied their viral second when the mutt remained well-behaved and was lastly led off by a canine handler.
On this beguiling different world, Slimane’s rock’n’roll aesthetic reigned supreme. For the reason that pandemic, the designer has cocked a snook on the trend week schedules, preferring both to indicate movies as a substitute of catwalk reveals, or to stage big extravaganzas that soak up bands and a celebration.
In December in Los Angeles, he staged a present that included performances by the Strokes and Iggy Pop and a runway that posited a return to skinny denims – a development that, because the designer of Dior Homme within the early 00s, he just about invented. And Slimane’s instincts have proved profitable, too – Celine has achieved the €2bn turnover that the LVMH boss, Bernard Arnault, set as a goal when the Frenchman took over the home in 2018. Slimane had beforehand utilized his rock’n’roll aesthetic to Saint Laurent, a tenure that was controversial amongst some trend critics however supercharged the label’s business efficiency.
On the Celine present, Slimane was at his most uncompromising. Dozens of pairs of leather-based trousers have been marched down the catwalk, culminating in a surprising pink, diamante-studded two-piece that Khalifa advised the Guardian he could be happy to put on. Other than that, in traditional Slimane styling there was a fake-fur coat worn over a swimsuit jacket, over a vest with a leopardskin scarf.
Slimane has dressed rock stars for years, from David Bowie and Mick Jagger to Jack White of the White Stripes, who was additionally in attendance. If indie sleaze – the revival of the early 00s’ hedonistic appears – was a theme, Slimane was additionally nodding to electroclash, the early 00s membership phenomenon that rebooted 80s synthpop and took its visible cues from Leigh Bowery’s legendary membership Taboo.
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In addition to in-your-face trend, the present additionally honoured the neighborhood that Slimane has constructed up over greater than 20 years. Afterwards, the Libertines performed, fronted by Doherty, Slimane’s erstwhile muse when the singer was on the peak of his indie rock fame, however who’s now, fortunately, burly and middle-aged. The efficiency yielded the pleasing spectacle of Khalifa nodding alongside to the lyrics “all of them get them out for the boys within the band”.
Slimane has remained unshakeable in his enthusiasm for indie music, even if within the web period it has light as an avatar of youthful rebel. Nonetheless, the younger Parisians within the viewers lapped it up, underlining the truth that the entire night was finally a celebration of the easy pleasure of going out.
At its root, Slimane’s Celine is in regards to the pleasure of particular events. He’s instinctively conscious of the that means of garments – the frock you put on on your birthday, the sneakers that make you’re feeling as when you can tackle the world. Displaying such an excessive iteration of this concept – even the tracksuit tops have been styled with leather-based trousers – Slimane paid tribute to the youth of Paris. However finally the present was about neighborhood within the web age, the ability of togetherness and of discovering your impeccably dressed tribe.
