THE CELINE GIRL IS BOURGEOIS, NO MATTER HOW SHE TRIES TO REBEL
Posted on by Cameron Tewson
Last season, Hedi Slimane‘s Celine was about the Parisian, bourgeois woman. For spring-summer 2020, it’s about her daughter, who wears nothing else but denim, dreams of Woodstock and eventually takes part in street protests. But still, she’s bourgeois, no matter how she tries to rebel. Slimane doesn’t overstrain himself. His collection is again a 1:1 version of Celine’s 1970s archives, with a bit more of slouchiness and the presence of Yves Saint Laurent turbans (and, oops, it seems that Anthony Vaccarello pulled them off as well at Saint Laurent – the two brands are dangerously the same this season).
While fashion drowns in nostalgia, there are designers who interpret the past in a fresh way – take Marc Jacobs or Paco Rabanne‘s Julien Dossena for SS20. In case of Hedi, noting how masterful he is in rebranding and shaking things up in the most of frustrating ways, it’s laziness. And confidence that anything will sell. Well, it will. Those denim culottes, fur coats and peasant dresses are destined to sell well, because they are easy, undemanding and chic. And, comparing to Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent, not so revealing.
One more thing. Here’s to the Philophiles: there are parallels between Phoebe Philo’s Céline and Hedi Slimane’s Celine. Actually, Philo was really good at the bourgeois style, even though nobody noticed that at the time. Her swan song collection is the best example. But while Phoebe’s take on Parisian bourgeois aesthetic was modern, comfortable, unobvious and less strict, Hedi is literal. And there’s nothing noble about doing things in a literal way.
