Watch Hedi Slimane’s latest Celine show, staged at France's national library

Hedi Slimane’s singular vision for Celine continues today (20 October 2023) with the release of his Summer 2024 womenswear collection for the house, presented in a short film captured amid the domed reading rooms and grand courtyards of Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris – the country’s foremost literary institution and just a stone’s throw from the Celine atelier on Rue Vivienne in the city’s 2nd arrondissement. 

Titled ‘La Collection de la Bibliothèque Nationale’, with the subtitle ‘Tomboy’, the collection is an exploration of the androgynous style codes which have been a part of Slimane’s oeuvre since the late 1990s. Here, the collection film’s opening and closing look – the former a pinstripe blazer worn with a varsity-style striped tie and jeans, the latter a razor-sharp black tuxedo with a crisp white shirt and skinny tie – were deemed by the house a reminder of the designer’s ‘commitment to a consistent style and allure of androgynous tailoring since he started his design career’. 

First look: Celine Women Summer 2024

Indeed, particularly in the latter look, there was an echo of Slimane‘s own uniform in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which often comprised a black tuxedo blazer, white shirt, skinny tie, and an equally skinny blue jean or trouser. It would become a style central to his tenure at Dior Homme, which began in 2001 with a show at the Galerie de Botanique in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris that radically narrowed the baggy silhouette of the era and ushered in a distinct new menswear look which would be adopted by the burgeoning indie and electro scenes of the time.

This seminal period in his career – the early 2000s – is an era Slimane has looked back towards in recent Celine collections; the designer’s previous womenswear show, held at the Wiltern Los Angeles last December, was titled ‘The Age of Indieness’, while the S/S 2023 collection prior Slimane said he wanted to capture the mood of ‘an indie summer’. As such, the musical movement’s undone, dishevelled glamour was conjured in frilled dresses, sliced-away denim and sequinned leather jackets, as well as what Slimane heralded as the return of ‘the original skinny jean’.

Today’s collection captures a similar mood, compounded by the choice of soundtrack – an extended version of LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Too Much Love’ from the American electro-indie band’s eponymous 2005 debut album, commissioned for the show by Slimane (‘to date, it remains one of the most influential sounds in indie electronic music and club scenes,’ read the release). Here, though – amid heavy boots, torn-away denim shorts, oversized leather jackets, hoodies, and plaid flannel shirts – came nods to Hollywood street style of the 2000s in riffs on the velour tracksuit and foldover sheepskin boots. Flourishes of Parisian bourgeois style codes, another perennial fixation of the designer, continued in nipped tweed jackets, ladylike chain handbags (like the house’s new Victoire style), and jeans which flared gently towards the hem.

The collection is interspersed with Slimane’s couture offering for the house, largely comprising an extraordinary array of full-length and abbreviated gowns adorned with shimmering crystal and embroidery. Despite the oftentimes hundreds of hours of handcraft it takes to complete each one, their diaphanous silhouettes – which often recall the slip dress of the 1990s – nonetheless retain Slimane’s hallmark insouciant, rock and roll-infused style.

The film itself, directed by Slimane, features appearances from actress Esther McGregor, the daughter of Ewan McGregor, and musician Stella Rose, the daughter of Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan. Featured throughout are Celine-embossed headphones, created with audio engineers Master & Dynamics in a special collaboration.

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