Update: In a further release from Celine this afternoon, Michael Rider has been named as Hedi Slimane’s successor. He has an impressive CV: beginning his career at Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière, Rider went on to spend a decade working with Phoebe Philo during her tenure at Celine and was most recently creative director of Polo Ralph Lauren.

'I am delighted to welcome Michael back to Celine, a maison that he knows intimately,' said Severine Merle, CEO of Celine. 'Michael’s vision, creative talent, together with his genuine nature and strong connection to Celine’s heritage make him a natural choice to continue to build a long-lasting success for the maison.' He will begin at the house in early 2025, and will oversee all collections, including womenswear, menswear and couture. He will show his first collection on July 6, 2025 in Paris.

After months of speculation, Hedi Slimane has confirmed he is leaving Celine, the house announced today (2 October 2024). Coming days after revealing his S/S 2025 womenswear collection via a short film, it marks the end of a seven-year tenure in which the designer has reshaped the house with his singular vision, which combines subcultural influences with the heights of Parisian savoir-faire.

‘Under his creative and artistic direction, Celine has experienced exceptional growth and established itself as an iconic French couture house,’ said Celine in a statement. ‘The extraordinary journey taken together over the last seven years has made Celine a house with a formidable foundation for the future.’

Hedi Slimane to leave Celine after seven years as artistic, creative and image director for the French couture house

To herald his arrival at the house in 2018 after the departure of Phoebe Philo, he dropped the acute accent – ‘é’ – from the first ‘e’ in Celine. His tenure has seen the designer achieve both commercial and critical success, establishing a comprehensive Celine wardrobe for men and women that spans clothing, accessories, haute parfumerie and, most recently, beauty, which launched in Harrods earlier this month with a single red lipstick.

Initially showing Celine collections as part of Paris Fashion Week, Slimane has since favoured either off-schedule shows – like a blockbuster A/W 2023 show held in Los Angeles titled ‘The Age of Indieness’, or collection films, which he directs. In keeping with this approach, he also photographs all of the brand’s campaigns.

His collections for the house – which favour riffs on archetypal garments over avant-garde statement – have drawn on Celine’s golden era in the 1960s and 1970s, whereby it was adopted as the uniform of the Parisian bourgeoisie (think: tweed jackets, silk carré scarves, horsebit motifs), though infused with Slimane’s love of rock and roll. Recently, he has drawn inspiration from the indie and electro scenes of the 2000s, when the designer rose to fame during his tenures at Dior Homme and later Saint Laurent. Music has been an intrinsic part of his runway shows, on which he has collaborated with figures from LCD Soundsystem to Suicide.

He also revived the house’s Triomphe logo, which is said to be based on the railings which surround Paris’ Arc de Triomphe and was introduced in the 1970s (so the story goes, house founder Céline Vipiana’s car broke down at the landmark, prompting her to notice the decorative flourish). It now adorns many of Slimane’s designs for the house, including the clasp of the ‘Triomphe’ handbag, sunglasses, jewellery, and Celine’s signature monogrammed canvas. In the brand’s HQ in Paris, they even distribute Triomphe-shaped candy and mints.

The move will of course prompt speculation as to where the designer is heading next – he has been one of the front runners in the conversation as to who will take over Chanel after the departure of Virginie Viard – though as yet the designer has not hinted at his next move.

celine.com

Two decades on from her death, French author Françoise Sagan is having something of a moment. First, there is the upcoming film adaptation of her breakout novel Bonjour Tristesse, a melodrama of teenage lust and disillusionment set in the Côte d'Azur which Sagan published in 1954 aged just 18 (it would make her a sensation). Starring Chloë Sevigny, Claes Bang and Lily McInerny, the new film premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month and marks the directorial debut of writer Durga Chew-Bose.

And this weekend in Paris, Hedi Slimane looked to Sagan as inspiration for his latest Celine womenswear collection, presented via a short film titled Un Été Français (it would mark the first time in four years that the designer has shown his womenswear collection to coincide with Paris Fashion Week, which is currently taking place in the city). It was not Bonjour Tristesse, though, which served as the collection’s starting point – rather La Chamade, another tale of teenage disillusionment and lost love. It traces the brief, heady relationship between the carefree Lucile and penniless publisher Antoine in post-war Paris, fated by Lucile’s desires to live a life of luxury. It was adapted into a 1968 movie by Alain Cavalier, starring Catherine Deneuve as the flighty Lucile.

Celine Womenswear Summer 2025: ‘Un Été Français’

The designer said that it was a re-reading of La Chamade, while listening to the music of The Velvet Underground and Nico, which set the S/S 2025 collection’s mood. Riffing on girlish, 1960s silhouettes, the collection is also a nod towards the golden era of the French house in the 1960s and 1970s, when Celine became the unofficial uniform of the Parisian bourgeoisie. Here, Slimane conjures the era’s liberated spirit in abbreviated skirt suits and tweed twin sets, ‘boarding school' kilts and babydoll dresses (the latter nipped under the chest with a bow), alongside Breton stripes, printed silk scarfs, and 1960s-style floral prints (a rare moment of pattern from the designer). An impressive series of couture looks, interspersed throughout, include architectural black evening gowns and shorter styles adorned by thousands of beads, crystals and sequins. The ‘Teen Bag Joséphine’, meanwhile, is the season’s main bag, a nostalgic, ladylike style which recalls vintage handbags.

Meanwhile winged eyeliner – an homage, says Slimane, to the recently departed actress Françoise Hardy – and ruffled bobbed hair suggest an underlying mood of rebellion, a subcultural streak which runs through all of the designer’s work. The eyeliner is a tease of a new release from the Celine Beauté. line, which launched in Harrods earlier this month with its first product, the ‘Rouge Triomphe’ classic red lipstick. The eyeliner was designed in ‘the spirit of Greco’, say the collection notes, a reference to another muse of Slimane’s: Juliette Gréco, the late French singer and actress who he photographed in 2020 (one of the images is a close-up of her eyes drawn with thick black eyeliner). The winged style also references the 2000s indie music scene, a continuing fascination for the designer.

The accompanying Slimane-directed film was shot on location at Compiègne, an opulent royal chateau to the north-east of Paris, where Marie Antoinette met Louis XVI. In the cinematic short, the models walk amid its dramatic corridors and frolic in the vast grounds (in one scene, a model holds a lamb, a nod perhaps to the tale that Antoinette had a flock of perfumed pink sheep in Versailles). Lila Moss stars in the short, which is soundtracked by the Lou Reed-written Femme Fatale, performed by The Velvet Underground and Nico. It provides a companion piece of sorts to the S/S 2025 menswear show film, released earlier this month, which was captured in Holkham Hall on England’s Norfolk coastline and drew inspiration from Evelyn Waugh and his social circle of Bright Young Things.

Watch the Summer 2025 Celine film below.

Thirty years in the making, Hedi Slimane’s latest Celine collection transports the Celine man from the streets of Paris to Holkham Hall, a rolling 18th-century estate on Britain’s Norfolk coastline designed by William Kent for the 1st Earl of Leicester in the grand Palladian style.

The collection is presented in a film directed by the designer (watch it below), a cinematic short that sees models walk amid the home’s porticos and manicured gardens, their outfits recalling Evelyn Waugh and his social circle in the 1920s. Indeed, the Summer 2025 collection’s title, ‘The Bright Young’, references ‘Bright Young Things’, a name given to the group of hard-partying socialites and bohemians which would be satirised by Waugh in his 1930 novel Vile Bodies.

Celine Summer 2025 menswear: ‘The Bright Young’

The particular allure of England, says Slimane, has been percolating for the past three decades, since he was a student at Ecole de Louvre in the latest 1980s. Then, he wrote an essay on ‘Anglomania’, which spanned the Comte D’Artois, who brought an English influence to the French court in Versailles, to 1920s socialites Stephen James Napier Tennant and photographer Cecile Beaton, known for their decadent, liberated lifestyles as part of Waugh’s set.

Slimane has also long been embedded in the British music scene. In 2020, he photographed six young British musicians for his ‘Portrait of a Performer’ series, including Bad Static’s Floyd Magee and Junior Cobbinah of Malady.

Here, though, Slimane riffs on the traditions and uniforms of the British upper classes – from straw boater hats and public school uniforms, to tailcoats and rowing blazers – while flourishes of romance come in sprays of country garden flowers that emerge from the brims of hats or the baskets of bikes, the latter specially designed by the designer for the film. Footwear sees plays on classic British styles: the monk strap, the derby and the Richelieu Oxford shoe.

Still, the collection retains the frisson of subversion that runs throughout Slimane’s work. Abbreviated chequered shorts are cut high on the thigh, worn with knee-high electric red socks, while tailoring has a louche, undone sensibility and is often worn with dark sunglasses – long a symbol of Slimane’s rebellious style.

Meanwhile, moments of craft demonstrate the savoir-faire of the Celine atelier and community of craftspeople, whether the 1920s English summer cashmere cloth rewoven for Celine for the collection, or hand embroidery, forming trompe l’oeil motifs or ‘heraldic’ Celine patches that reproduce techniques on early 20th-century military uniforms.

With its horseriding on the lawns, zooming bicycles and lingering, longing shots of the palatial grounds and its yearning inhabitants, the film recalls the great British costume dramas like Brideshead Revisited, an adaption of the Waugh novel screened on the BBC in the early 1980s (which in turn would inspire 2023’s breakout film Saltburn).

Alongside last season’s Winter 2024 collection film, a Western epic directed by Slimane in California’s Mojave Desert, this latest celluloid outing is a testament to his ambitious cinematic vision – an auteur, as much as a designer.

Watch the film of the Celine Summer 2025 menswear show below.

Forms were an abstract concept for German-French sculptor, painter, and poet, Jean Arp, who drew on nature’s organic silhouettes to create sensual shapes in his work.

The ephemeral nature of his sculptures, encapsulated particularly in the series he created in the 1950s after being inspired during trips to Greece, made his estate a natural choice for Celine creative director Hedi Slimane when considering the next focus for the Celine Bijoux d’Artistes Project. The project, paying tribute to great avant-garde artists, has so far collaborated with the estates of French sculptor César and American sculptor Louise Nevelon, translating their works into wearable art forms in 2020 and 2022 respectively.

Now, it is the turn of Jean Arp, and the third iteration of the project is a homage to Arp’s work, Ptolémée II, a biomorphic shape juxtaposing solidity with space. Gently curving, its oval form pays as much respect to the void as it does to the bronze, cutting a harmonious balance between the two.

‘It was in the house-studio in Meudon-Clamart that Arp created the sculptures in the round, including the versions of "Ptolemy" (the title is a reference to Claudius Ptolemy, the ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, and geographer),’ says Etienne Robial, art director and president of Fondation Arp, who has worked closely with Celine on this jewellery project. ‘"Ptolemy" is a perfect example of the dialectic of emptiness and substance, inside and outside, form and counter-form, where the full and the void both complement and resonate with each other.’

The Fondation Arp, just outside Paris, is a carefully preserved tribute to the two artists, with the house-studio and gardens continuing to be a meeting place for artists, researchers, museum curators and exhibition commissioners. In its maintained grounds and thoughtfully curated interiors, it is an embodiment of the Dadaist philosophy that guided Arp and Taeuber-Arp in their life and work. ‘Dadaism was a movement for art, not against it, a rebellious spirit striving to make art the driving force for a new society, in complete contrast to the one that led to the First World War,’ adds Robial. ‘From their Dadaist past, Arp and Taeuber-Arp maintained a lasting camaraderie with fellow artists through their lives, the fulfilment in creating collective works where personalities fade away in favour of creation. Together they have created duo-drawings, sculptures, and collages.’

In the house-studio designed by Taeuber-Arp, where the couple lived from 1929, a clean materiality reigns, evinced in the clean lines of sandstone and concrete and simple, painted wood linear furniture. ‘Here, we meet all the guiding principles of Sophie Taeuber-Arp's holistic thinking and the poetry of Jean Arp's sculptures in the round.’

For Robial, the collaboration with Celine is a harmonious melting pot of Arp and Celine’s philosophies, his own work and the cultural climate. ‘I am interested in Arp precisely because of the dialogue between form and counter-form, a closely related theme in my work as a graphic designer and typographer. An Arp sculpture is like a letter of the alphabet. As president of the Fondation Arp my work is focused on uncovering the similarities between the creations of Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and current artistic concerns.’

It was crucial in the partnership to maintain the tension between space and matter Arp expressed in his work, but the process was not without its challenges. The jewellery, created in a small workshop in central Paris, spent over 18 months in production, the result of over 50 prototypes, in the pursuit of a perfect balance between weight and form. To avoid the piece being too heavy, a hollowed structure was required, a fact which then meant a mould couldn’t be created as it would in the normal production process for a jewellery piece. Eventually weighing in at over 130 grams, it is by far the heaviest Bijoux d’Artiste piece created by Celine. Worn on a chain, a retractable eyelet means it can also stand alone as a miniature Ptolémée II reproduction.

‘One of the key characteristics of this pendant is that it can be looked at and appreciated from different angles, something that Celine had not yet experimented with,’ says Robial. ‘This is certainly one of the reasons why this piece was chosen. Another determining factor was the selection of materials, vermeil (yellow-gold) and silver, which brought a preciousness to the two pieces created. Arp was interested in jewellery throughout his life. He worked with artisans to create pendants, brooches, rings, cufflinks and more. He would surely have been very proud of the collaboration, and admired the exceptional craftsmanship of the Celine artisans.’

fondationarp.org, celine.com

This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from 8 August, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Back in March this year (2024) Hedi Slimane announced the imminent arrival of Celine’s first-ever beauty line, Celine Beauté. In September, the collection pre-launched alongside Celine’s A/W 2024 collection in a pop-up space with its debut product: a quintessential red lipstick named ‘Rouge Triomphe’.

As of yesterday (16 October), ‘Rouge Triomphe’ is now available globally, both in Celine stores and online. It is described by the Maison as ‘effortless’ – a term that not only applies to how it should be worn but also its formulation.

Celine Beauté by Hedi Slimane’s ‘Rouge Triomphe’ lipstick arrives in-store and online

‘Rouge Triomphe’ has a deeply hydrating yet long-lasting satin finish. Designed to feel almost weightless, draws upon Slimane’s ‘obsession with couture fabrics’. Contained in a faceted refillable case, nodding to Louis XVI’s gold jewellery and Art Deco design, the lipstick’s delicate scent of rose and rice powder is a nostalgic nod to beauty products from the 1970s.

Hedi Slimane tapped American model and actor Ever Anderson to star in the debut Celine Beauté campaign, which rolled out in August.

The 16-year-old Anderson, who is the daughter of Milla Jovovich, has also recently featured in Celine’s ‘Portrait of an Actress’ photography series. (Other notable subjects shot by Slimane for the project include Margaret Qualley, whose recent roles include Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, and Lily McInerny, who will star alongside Chloë Sevigny in the upcoming film adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse).

In the campaign film, Slimane captured the up-and-coming star in close-up, a wind machine blowing her tousled dirty blonde hair, styled by Esther Langham. Her make-up look, created by Aaron De May, allowed Anderson’s freckles to show through subtly mattified skin; barely perceptible eyeshadow and mascara ensured the ‘Rouge Triomphe’ lipstick appeared in sharp focus.

Earlier this month (2 October 2024) Slimane announced that he would be stepping down from Celine after a seven-year tenure as its artistic, creative and image director. Michael Rider was soon named as his successor, noting in a press statement that ‘Celine is a maison with values very close to my heart and a beautiful heritage to build on.’

But for now, there is still a lot to come in terms of the house’s beauty offering, which remains everything you would expect from Hedi Slimane’s uncompromisingly chic world. Expect 14 more ‘Rouge Celine’ lipstick shades including ‘La Peau Nue’ (a colour first used by in the house’s 2024 show); eyeliner, which was demonstrated to powerful effect in Slimane’s 1960s-inspired collection for S/S 2025; plus nail polish, blush, loose powder, tools, accessories, and more.

Celine Beauté ‘Rouge Triomphe’ lipstick (£62; refill £40) is available now.

celine.com

If ever there was motivation to workout, this might just be it – Hedi Slimane has revealed a Celine pilates collection, rendering the exercise’s essential accessories in the French designer’s deeply luxurious style.

There is a sheepskin and Triomphe canvas-clad reformer machine, a cork yoga mat and block, and an array of weights, from an impossibly chic lambskin kettlebell to dumbells and weighted bracelets. Besides their functionality, each is also a satisfying objet in itself, constructed with the same savoir-faire as the house’s clothing and accessories.

Alongside, an array of activewear has also been revealed, from sports bras and cycling shorts in seamless technical jersey to viscose crop tops and leggings. An athletic headband, meanwhile, is adorned with a metal Triomphe motif, while a barrel-shaped holdall in Triomphe canvas and calfskin is a sleek alternative to the typical nylon gym bag (so much so, it might take some convincing to put your sweaty workout gear back inside).

Hedi Slimane reveals Celine pilates collection

It follows a Celine dog collection, inspired by Slimane’s own canine companion Elvis, which comprised collars, leashes and treat bags. Other objects created by Slimane during his tenure include hammocks, lighter cases, board games, boules and beach bats. Each one helps populate Slimane’s luxurious universe at the house.

To reveal the pilates collection, Hedi Slimane photographed house muse Kaia Gerber in Malibu in December 2023. In the sunlit images, a workout-ready Gerber wields a yoga mat, cap and headphones (the last a Celine and Master & Dynamic collaboration) with the Pacific Ocean glimmering in the distance beyond.

The Celine pilates collection will be released on Celine’s website and selected stores this coming October.

celine.com

A phalanx of Celine-branded helicopters and a motorcade of black Cadillacs; soaring shots of the undulating mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert; cowboys on braying horses; miles-long stretches of Californian open road – with his latest Celine menswear collection, presented in a short film released today, Hedi Slimane embraces the cinematic for a Hollywood epic in the designer’s singular style.

It begins with a jukebox – delivered by helicopter and replete with the same Celine branding – which when flipped on plays not one of Slimane’s usual rock and roll muses (recent collection films and shows from the designer have featured soundtracks from LCD Soundsystem, The Libertines and Alan Vega), but Hector Berlioz’s 1830-composed ‘Symphonie Fantastique’.

Celine Winter 2024 menswear: ‘Symphonie Fantastique’

Purportedly inspired by an obsessive, consuming relationship between the French musician and English actress Harriet Smithson, the dream-like epic is a feverish hallucination – one of opium poisoning, satanic witches and murder – which in 1969 was declared by Leonard Bernstein as ’the first psychedelic symphony’, created over a century before the birth of the acid-fuelled 1960s movement.

‘Now I’m sure that any of you who has ever had a crush on someone who didn't return your feeling will understand that passionate melody perfectly,’ said Bernstein, who recently was the subject of Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, starring Bradley Cooper in the titular role. ‘You can easily see how a lovesick musician could become obsessed by it. And if you understand that, you're ready to hear the symphony.’ Slimane discovered the work at age 11, and became instantly ’passionate’ about Berlioz, the house describes.

It provides a suitably dramatic backdrop for a collection that mines Slimane’s most enduring signatures: the narrow riff on the tuxedo, shrunken leather jackets and trousers, and flourishes of rock-and-roll showmanship, from pussy-bow neckties to fabrics that glimmer across their surface. An evolution comes in the play on proportion that runs through the tailoring: blazers are elongated or nipped in the body, or shortened in the lapel, recalling 1960s silhouettes (other jackets see the lapel done away with entirely, in what the house describes as a ‘frock coat’). Bernstein, meanwhile, seems to hover over the collection in roll-neck sweaters and billowing capes, which are instilled with the drama of the concert hall.

Elsewhere, a series of pieces from the house’s couture arm capture Slimane’s ongoing fascination with Parisian savoir-faire – whether crystal-adorned overcoats which refract the Mojave Desert’s light, or tailoring decorated with thousands of sequins. Each is shown on Slimane’s make-shift catwalks: a vast stretch of open road which runs through the desert like an airport runway.

California, and Los Angeles – the latter shown in glimpses of its downtown skyline at the end of the film – has long been something of a second home for Slimane, who lived in the city before relocating to the south of France at the beginning of his tenure at Celine. His fascination with the city’s heady blend of rock and roll subculture and nostalgic, Hollywood glamour has long pervaded his collections at Celine and at Saint Laurent and Dior Homme prior. In December of 2022, he hosted his Winter 2023 collection with a high-wattage show The Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, a historic movie palace-turned-music venue which has hosted the likes of Prince, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth.

Discover Celine’s Winter 2024 womenswear collection, which was presented this past March in a Hedi Slimane-directed film, here.

celine.com

Early in 2022, Celine creative director Hedi Slimane revealed a somewhat unexpected new muse – his beloved canine companion, Elvis. 

The shaggy-haired dog – named after Elvis Presley, a longtime fascination of Slimane, who photographed Graceland in 2014 – provided the inspiration for, and became the face of, the designer’s first Celine dog accessories and saddlery collection in May 2022. 

Hedi Slimane reveals second Celine dog collection

Crafted with the same attention to quality and savoir-faire as the house’s clothing and accessories – particularly demonstrating its expertise in leather – it comprised Celine-monogram collars and leashes, a clip-on wallet for dog bags and treats, a canvas-clad feeding bowl, and a version of the ‘Voyage’ carry-all emblazoned with ‘dog’ (and, so its feline counterpart didn’t feel left out, another version read ‘cat’).

There was even a black rubber toy in the shape of the house’s historic ‘Triomphe’ monogram – Slimane’s luxurious riff on the traditional ‘chew toy’.

Revealed yesterday (7 December 2023), Elvis returns in a new Slimane-shot campaign, showcasing the designer’s latest dog collection. This time, he’s joined by some royal companions: Police, the dog of HRH Caroline of Hanover, and Eloïse, the pet of HRH Alexandra of Hanover. Befitting the subjects, the campaign was photographed in Monaco.

This time, objects include a dog carrier in Celine-monogram canvas with lambskin trim, an array of dog collars and leads, an animal-print version of the canvas feeding bowl, a sheepskin toy, a sequined treat bag, a brush, and a rattan basket designed to hold your canine companion’s belongings.

And, though ostensibly these are accessories to spoil your dog, such is the beauty of the various objects that they will provide an equally satisfying adornment for owners – and their homes.

The Celine dog and pet collection is available now in Celine stores and at celine.com.

The energetic, rebellious spirit of the early 2000s New York art scene – personified by the late artist Dash Snow and his creative milieu – infuses Hedi Slimane’s latest menswear offering for Celine, which was shown via a short film by the designer yesterday (28 November 2023).

Titled ‘Delusional Daydream’, Slimane deemed it the ‘show that never was’, having been postponed from earlier this summer when riots and social unrest engulfed Paris after the police shooting of a teenager. Set to take place at La Gaité Lyrique – a musical venue housed within a former Haussmann theatre opened in 1862 – Slimane said at the time that a fashion show would be ‘inconsiderate and totally out of place’.

‘Delusional Daydream’: Celine Homme S/S 2024 

The film sees Slimane return to La Gaité Lyrique, creating a gilded mirrored runway set within the space, while La Grand Rex – a vast 1930s cinema and Parisian landmark – also features in sweeping external views, crested with ‘Celine’ written in rotating lights. In dramatic style, the film finishes with a sequined caped model standing on the roof of the historic cinema, emitting shimmering sparks up towards a star-filled Parisian style.

Other scenes are filmed in the grand auditorium of the Monte Carlo Opéra-Garnier, featuring the classical ballet dancer and model Laurids Seidel. The soundtrack – in an echo of Celine’s most recent womenswear collection, shown in October – is provided by LCD Soundsystem, who rework their 2002 song ‘Losing My Edge’, which featured on the band’s eponymous 2005 album. Slimane has previously called it one of ’the most influential sounds in indie electronic music and club scenes’. 

Indeed, this clash – between the classical surrounds of the Opéra-Garnier and the grinding sounds of the early 2000s club scene – provides much of the energy behind the collection. References to the indie dress codes that Slimane helped to define during his influential tenure at Dior Homme that began in 2001 (razor-sharp tailoring, skinny leather trousers and ties, dark sunglasses) meet flourishes taken from traditional haute couture – from trailing satin bows and sashes to narrow bustier tops, as well as swathes of sequins and embroidery.

The last, said Slimane, came from viewing ceremonial portraits of the 17th-century French court, particularly the classic Baroque works of Pierre Mignard. Contemporary works by Snow – chosen from the Dash Snow Archive and largely comprising typographic pieces featuring cut-out newspaper headlines – also feature in the collection. Best known for his Polaroid portraits of his friends and creative circle, Slimane has a longstanding relationship with Snow, having featured his works in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth‘, a 2007 group show at Arndt & Partner in Berlin curated by the designer.

It is a period that Slimane has been particularly preoccupied with in recent seasons, including his S/S 2024 womenswear collection, ‘La Collection de la Bibliothèque Nationale’, which looked back towards the androgynous tailoring of the early 2000s. And, just last week, he revealed an unexpected festive window display by American artist Banks Violette, one of Snow’s contemporaries whose work also featured in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth‘.

Completing the collection were the usual enticing array of leather goods and accessories, including the new ‘Malaquais Cabas’ tote bag – a sleek, rectangular top-handle tote in varying leather and suede – as well as a new iteration of the slouchy ‘Romy’ bag in Triomphe monogram canvas, the house’s distinct leitmotif inspired by the decorative chains surrounding Paris’ Arc de Triomphe.

www.celine.com

In the summer of 2007 – part of the heady, early-aughts era the designer has referenced in his recent Celine collections – Hedi Slimane curated an exhibition at Arndt & Partner Gallery in Berlin. Evocatively titled ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’, it gathered a group of young artists who were part of a changing New York scene, one of both decadence and rebellion. The movement was perhaps personified by the late Dash Snow, whose polaroids captured his friends and their exploits; other artists featured included Terence Koh, Ryan McGinley and Nate Lowman. 

Another was Banks Violette, a painter and sculptor born in upstate New York, whose works – sometimes deemed paint of the ‘New Gothic Art’ movement – riff on American motifs, from galloping horses to the stars and stripes of the American flag, often stripped to their essence and recreated in black and white. In 2022, Slimane reconnected with Violette, asking the artist to adorn pieces in his A/W 2022 menswear collection for Celine (an American flag by Violette, for example, was embroidered onto the back of a leather jacket).

Banks Violette for Celine Art Project

Now, in an unexpected riff on the festive window display, Slimane has once again looked to Violette – who is represented by Maureen Paley Gallery in London and Gladstone Gallery in New York – to create a major new body of work (14 pieces in total) to be displayed in Celine stores worldwide. Violette calls the pieces ‘chandelier structures’, comprising three industrial lighting displays that appear in varying states of collapse.

‘The works build, in a stop-motion fashion, from the stable to the broken, the glamorous to the dissolute; standing turns into a stumble, and a stumble ends itself nodded out in the corner,’ Violette describes. ‘[Martin] Kippenberger’s “Street Lamp for Drunks” re-read through an opiate-limned, Narcan-dependent contemporary imaginary [lens].’

On his ongoing collaboration with Slimane, Violette says he admires ’that even when the approach is deconstructed, there isn’t any critical remove or detachment. There’s a genuine sincerity to his investment in the things he admires. As a result, he can transform something that is permanently framed as ironic into its opposite.’

Banks Violette for Celine Art Project will appear in Celine stores over the course of this month and will be on display until January.

celine.com

Last year (2023) the ritual art of Parisian bathing was captured by Celine’s creative director Hedi Slimane in a new collection of haute perfumerie. A debut fragrance Cologne Céleste (described as ‘simultaneously universal and comforting’, with notes of orange blossom, angelica, sweet lemon essence, petitgrain, neroli, ambrette, and orris butter) was also crafted into L’Huile Céleste, an oil for body and hair and Le Lait Céleste Pour Le Bain, a softening bath milk.

Bathe like a Parisian with Celine bath and body

Slimane described memories from his Parisian childhood as the inspiration behind this new olfactory chapter. ‘Bathing is an essential gesture that systematically plunges me back into the gentle and soothing atmosphere of childhood,’ he said in a statement. ‘First, it is about pouring it into the bath and surrendering yourself to the smooth, delicate, and sugary notes of orange blossom. Then, after the bath, used as a body rub, the Eau de Cologne Céleste will protect you all day long and veil your clothes in a soft and elegant scent.’

Now, Celine has just announced the expansion of its bathing ritual, with the release of liquid soap, body milk, hand cream and hair mist, each imbued with classic scents from Celine’s fragrance line. ‘Each formula has been developed and custom made by Hedi Slimane from carefully chosen raw materials to perfectly combine high performance and natural ingredients, whilst faithfully reproducing the collection's olfactory signature,’ says the brand.The liquid soap, body milk and hand cream are available in the Parade, La Peau Nue, Reptile and Cologne Celeste fragrances, whilst the hair mist is fragranced with Parade, Reptile and Black Tie.

As we’ve all come to expect from Celine’s grooming and lifestyle collections, every piece of packaging is a streamlined work of art, with bevelled angles on glass bottles and glossy black caps laser engraved with the Maison’s Triomphe motif.

The Celine bath and body collection is available now.

celine.com

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.

celine.com

Last December, Hedi Slimane headed to Hollywood for his Winter 2023 Celine show, taking over the historic Wiltern Theatre for a collection titled ‘The Age of Indieness’. The high-wattage show – backdropped by a blown-up version of the house’s ‘Triomphe’ monogram’, here illuminated in lights – marked something of a return for the French designer, who lived in Los Angeles for several years before returning to France in 2018.

Half a year on, a new Slimane-directed short film captures the high-wattage event, which featured a phalanx of Hollywood stars watching on from the front row, and a slew of musical performances at the raucous after-party. These included Iggy Pop, The Strokes and Interpol, all of whom featured in the short film, released to coincide with the collection’s launch in international Celine stores this month (July 2023). 

Revisit Celine’s Winter 2023 show in new film

The Wiltern and its opulent art deco interior – as much the star of Slimane’s film as the musicians and models – was first built in the 1930s as a vaudeville theatre. Stints as a cinema followed (it was known as one of the city’s foremost ‘movie palaces’), before being transformed into a cult music venue which has hosted performances from the likes of Prince, The Rolling Stones and Sonic Youth, among others.

Such a setting provided an apt reflection of the collection itself, which melded tropes of Hollywood glamour – around 20 per cent of the collection was the house’s couture offering, with diaphanous metallic dresses featuring tens of thousands of embroidered sequins and crystals – with the subcultural influences that have run throughout Slimane’s output at Celine and at Saint Laurent and Dior Homme prior.  

Watch the film: Celine at The Wiltern

celine.com

Parisian nightspot Le Palace – a former theatre-turned-1980s haunt of Yves Saint Laurent, Grace Jones, Karl Lagerfeld, and more – provided the setting for Celine’s A/W 2023 menswear show, held in February of this year.

It was a place of particular resonance for creative director Hedi Slimane, who first frequented the club when he was 16 years old. Later, he would celebrate his 50th birthday in Le Palace, noting that the spot ‘triggered his future as a couturier’. During his tenures at Dior Homme, Saint Laurent and currently at Celine, he has drawn on the heady spirit of adolescence, oftentimes infused with an after-dark sensibility. 

Hedi Slimane directs Celine Homme A/W 2023 film

Released today, a new short film by the French designer is released by the house. Shot in Slimane’s distinct style, it captures the energetic mood of the show, which was inspired by what he called the ‘rediscovery’ of 2000s electro-clash and electro-rock ‘sounds and scenes’.

As such, leather was central to the collection: notably, a pair of skinny leather pants worn in ‘double leather’ looks with biker and racer jackets. Other pieces draw a line between Le Palace’s heyday – it was founded in 1978 and came to be known as ‘Paris’ Studio 54’ – and the 2000s in furry animal print jackets, beaded trompe l’oeil bows, tassels and numerous studs and rhinestones. Looks were completed with a spritz of ‘Nightclubbing’ perfume from the house’s Celine Haute Parfumerie collection.

The show, which was titled ‘Paris Syndrome’, also featured a soundtrack by 1970s New York electronic band Suicide fronted by Alan Vega. The late musician’s artworks featured across the collection, while instrumentalist Martin Rev created the soundtrack. ‘Everybody came in to see Suicide to be entertained,’ Vega was quoted as saying in the collection notes. ‘And all we did was give them back the street, in all its glory.’

The release of the video also coincides with the announcement that Hedi Slimane will show his latest menswear show – Celine Homme S/S 2024 – on Sunday 2 July 2023 in Paris. Like last season, it sees Slimane divert from the official Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2024 schedule, which concluded earlier this week.

Watch the film below.

celine.com

The ground floor space of Celine New Bond Street, which has been designed to reflect French elegance and classical luxury. Nika Neelova’s sculptures, Lemniscate XI and Lemniscate XIV, made from reclaimed bannister handrails, are suspended from the ceiling. Asger Dybvad Larsen’s Untitled is pictured on the right hand wall, and Leilah Babirye’s sculpture Najunga from the Kuchu Ngaali (Crested Crane) Clan can be seen in the background

Approach the Baroque-style façade at Celine New Bond Street, the maison’s new London flagship, and you will be greeted not by handbags, shoes and clothes, but by statement of material integrity and modernist rigour: sitting in a street-facing window is a sculpture by the artist Marie Lund, which positions a copper wing against blocks of clay. Perfectly disarming and seductive, this is a portal into Celine artistic director Hedi Slimane’s arena of exacting opulence.

With its veiny marble floors, folding mirrors and glowing shelves, the store – located at 40 New Bond Street – channels a brutalist neo-classical ambience somewhere between a 15th-century Dutch still life and the luminous hotel suite in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is a sculptural space, flooded with stone, granite, marble, reclaimed oak, concrete, polished stainless steel and brass. A carnival of materials, furniture and artworks that is elemental and awesome. 

Step into Celine New Bond Street, the French maison’s art-filled central London flagship

Slimane’s intention was to interact with the Grade II-listed Edwardian building in two unique ways. The 345 sq m ground floor is devoted to women, formulated around the aura of French elegance and classical luxury. An octagonal room – originally designed in the manner of an Italian grotto with panels of fine shell work – is now dedicated to the Celine Haute Parfumerie collection. Long shelves and racks float in space. Two of the London-based artist Nika Neelova’s wooden handrail sculptures are suspended from the ceiling. ‘This commission was an interesting way of letting go of something and allowing it to acquire its own life and place in the world. One that is outside of institutions and galleries,’ she says. 

Mirrored panels lining the walls fragment all of the works on display into new formations. ‘It almost creates this infinite loop wherever you look, with all of the artists coming together. I'm very interested in this hybrid model where disciplines start to cross over and boundaries become blurred,’ Neelova says. ‘Looking at references from outside the fashion world within the context of a shop is a beautiful way for things to evolve. This feels like the perfect art exhibition.’

The vast floor plan of 466 sq m is punctuated by numerous pieces that form part of the Celine Art Project, which invites contemporary artists to make works specifically for stores around the world. Slink into the basement men’s department and you are greeted by a polished cast bronze bell by the artist Davina Semo – which you are invited to toll – hovering over a nook of eclectic wooden stools, chairs and books on Auguste Rodin, Charlotte Perriand and Otto Dix. Here the walls are finished in smooth white, the floor a fine smog-hued concrete. 

The artworks create a unique tension between what is public and private space, exhibition and exhibitor, material and meaning. This reimagining of form, place and value is what appealed to the New York-based sculptor Leilah Babirye, whose 2.7m wooden totem stands on the ground floor in front of a mirrored concertina. It signals a change in the space from one room to the next. ‘In this context, I feel as if the piece captures a lot of people – it opens a lot of the dialogue that I am trying to discuss in the work itself,’ she says. ‘I've never done anything for a store or public space, so I’m interested to know how people react and relate to it. I didn’t know about Celine before because I'm not a fashion person. I am an artist.’

Through her large-scale ceramic pieces, wooden sculptures, masks, drawings and paintings, Babirye examines clan hierarchy in the kingdom of Buganda, a Bantu enclave within her native Uganda. Her use of found materials is a way of grappling with LGBTQ+ history and ‘the sense of us being called trash’. Titled Najunga from the Kuchu Ngaali (Crested Crane) Clan, the piece is an unflinching tower of dark wood, wax, glue, acrylic, bolts, washers, nails, aluminium, plaited bicycle tyre inner tubes and welded metal. She was commissioned to make the piece in July. ‘That was also very hard for me because I don't work like that – with somebody telling me they want something that looks like another piece I have made,’ Babiyre says. ‘I don’t have sketches. I never know what I'm going to make the next time I am carving or whether I will find the same materials. I just look at the material. The material drives me to do whatever happens.’

This matter of materials is what is most striking in Slimane’s curatorial act. Both Babirye and Neelova’s pieces are embedded with veiled meaning, their material provenance just as important as their conceptual heft. ‘I have a pile of things that I've collected from all over the place, even from scrap yards. It’s surprising to see the difference in what people throw away here in the US,’ Babirye says. ‘Where I am from, it’s hard to find things because people use stuff. So when somebody from home sees my work with spoons, forks, knives, they ask, “Do you buy them?” and I have to explain that I find them on the street.’ 

Neelova’s Lemniscate XI and Lemniscate XIV are made from reclaimed bannister handrails which she reassembles into sweeping orchestral objects. They resonate with Slimane’s preoccupation with presenting us with something we think we have seen before – denim jeans, varsity jackets, tailored skirts – yet under his direction feel curiously new.

‘I think in that sense, there is a contrast to the works on show because my pieces are based on rescued and repurposed architectural fragments, but I've chosen the handrail because it's something that is moulded specifically to fit in the palm of the hand. It is something designed based on human proportion and it choreographs the body through space. I think there is a nice crossover in the sense that fashion is so much built around the human body and human proportions,’ Neelova says. ‘I had read somewhere that over time, wooden banisters collect microscopic bits of skin. And so to me these pieces also carry the memories of all of the people who have interacted with them. They carry the DNA of hundreds and hundreds of people.’ 

Dealing with the human body is fashion’s modus operandi. Positioned in one of the menswear fitting rooms is an oil painting dated 1670 of a young man dressed in steel body armour and white silk sash. Entitled Portrait of Maximilien de Bethune Duc de Sully and of the Flemish school, it curiously aligns with Slimane’s own ongoing photographic ode to youth and beauty. It adds another layer to the shop as a space for mortal contemplation.

INFORMATION

40 New Bond Street, London W1
celine.com

Hedi Slimane has brought a rock ‘n' roll edge to jewellery since beginning his tenure at Celine, playing with oversized silhouettes and artistic references for chic jewels. In past collections, his flirtation with gleaming textured gold made for bold chains – now, he builds on these foundations for adornments which imbue precious materials with a new spiriutality.

Rich in spiritual references and supposedly endowed with health benefits, crystals have long held the human race bewitched, and now Hedi Slimane has fallen under their spell with the Les Cristaux Celine collection which intertwines jewels in historicity. The crystals, beautiful in their raw geometry, teeter on circles of gold-finished brass. On a cuff, a crystal of rutilated quartz is held suspended, seemingly untethered. Nicknamed Angel Hair, it was rumoured to have been created by the Gods themselves.

On a ring, a sheaf of pyrite – more colloquially known as fool’s gold and which once enthralled the Incas with its alluring glow – is haphazardly placed, cutting a striking architectural silhouette. In a necklace of star mica, the honey-hued stone commonly used by alechemists as a substitute for gold powder, floats in its circle of brass and makes for a tantalising talisman.

INFORMATION
This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of Wallpaper* (W*257); download the latest issue for free here

celine.com

The late French sculptor César Baldaccini’s experiments with compression have been reinterpreted by Celine’s Hedi Slimane, who has partnered with the Fondation César for the release of a new limited edition jewellery collection.

César’s fascination with compressed forms led to the creation of both small and large scale sculptures crafted from metallic objects. His interest, first piqued after a visit to a scrap merchant where he witnessed a large crushing machine in action, led to the creation of the artworks. It was a body of work that grew to encompass jewellery, and César’s compressed miniature sculptures created from the jewellery donated from friends and family became deeply meaningful adornments.

Now, Celine has rethought this history, creating strong forms which bring to life an era artistically influential for both the Celine Maison and Fondation César. The jewellery, aligning César’s first compressions in gold from the early 1970s with the decade’s sense of Parisian glamour, encapsulates a sense of creative freedom.

‘There is a strong coherence between the Compression pendants and Hedi’s Celine fashion,’ says Stéphanie Busuttil, head of Fondation César and César’s widow. She sees many parallels between the two artists: ‘They share a sensibility, an instinctivity, and a certain timidity. They are very solar in a way, and they both were very close to Azzedine Alaia, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. For me it means something. There is an echo, I can’t explain it, but it is a kind of posthumous family – or an invisible link.’

It is a connection reflected in the jewellery, which references this rich history in two 100-piece editions of vermeil and silver. The elongated silhouettes pay homage to the original collection, with the neatly shrunk forms a microcosm of the sentimental nature they were imbued with. Fittingly, they come complete with a retractable hook, and are also intricate stand-alone sculptures in their own right.

INFORMATION

The jewellery will be available exclusively in seven stores worldwide from 3 July, including London New Bond Street. celine.com

Since his arrival in 2018, Hedi Slimane has wasted no time in making Celine his own, adding menswear, subtracting the ‘e' acute, and devising a global retail concept. The artistic, creative, and image director continues to make his mark with the couturier's first haute parfumerie collection since the 1964 Vent Fou. Announced today, nine releases from the 11-strong collection are set to spritz the autumn season, with two more to follow in 2020.

The Parisian spirit (and more precisely, what this means in a contemporary context) is at the heart of the olfactory project. The Celine perfume collection is devised from Slimane's own journals (where memories are kept as highly personal inspirational imprints), while drawing upon French high perfumery, in keeping with the tradition of the couturier parfumeur.

Loosely divided into eight day and three evening perfumes, Slimane chose the names to capture specific moments from his diaries. The day selections derive almost exclusively from French touchpoints – think ‘Dans Paris', ‘Rimbaud', and ‘Saint-Germain-Des-Prés'. One exception, ‘Eau de Californie', is Slimane's tribute to his Californian period, where his exploration of urban youth culture was particularly lively. The names of the evening choices ‘Black tie', ‘Reptile' and ‘Nightclubbing' suggest intriguing, moonlit references; the origins of which are left opaque.

Uniting each, a powdery note acts as a backdrop. It's a tone that has travelled alongside Slimane on his olfactory journey (which famously saw him author a private collection of parfums for Dior in 2004). The Celine Haute Parfumerie collection also continues to participate in Slimane's stylistic codes, investigating androgyny. The compositions make no distinction between traditional masculine or feminine notes.

As in Slimane's Celine store designs, where materiality plays a key role, and furniture, fabrics and fittings beg to be touched, the bottle is a tactile object. It reflects France's strong history in glassmaking, deftly stepping between 17th century classicism and the kind of bold lines found in art deco glassware, all the while remaining minimal. Detailing continues on the paper embossed box, which draws inspiration from woodwork panelling found at the Hôtel Colbert de Torcy, where the Celine ateliers are. Here, Slimane has created a solid and simple object to be treasured after the elixir is emptied.

INFORMATION

celine.com

Hedi Slimane has lost no time in making Celine his own, after taking over as creative director at the luxury brand given cult status by the departing Phoebe Philo. Since his arrival last year, Slimane has removed the accent on the ‘e’, introduced menswear, put his stamp firmly on womenswear, and is now rolling out his new retail concept worldwide.

Of the latest move, Celine’s CEO Séverine Merle explains: ‘Celine has a great distribution network and high-quality visibility but no large stores. We need to open flagships in major cities, larger stores that can accommodate menswear and newly expanded women’s collections.’ Which is why in March, less than a month after inaugurating its 5,000 sq ft New York flagship at 650 Madison Avenue, Celine unveiled two addresses in Paris: a remodelled two-storey space for menswear and womenswear on rue de Grenelle, and the brand’s first menswear flagship on rue François 1er. By mid-April, the French maison had also opened new boutiques in Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milan and London, while a store in Beijing is due to follow before the end of the year.

Slimane designed all of the spaces in collaboration with Celine’s in-house team. Though each store is unique, they share common traits, such as an emphasis on natural stone and other bold materials. Massive, richly veined slabs of marble, granite and travertine appear on walls, shelves and blocky columns, while the floors are lined with Basaltina lava stone. Their contrasting patterns are a feast for the eyes, reflected in floor-to-ceiling mirrors and steel surfaces. Reclaimed oak along with wood and leather furniture bring warm accents of brown to the sleek black-and-white palette.

Many of these materials beg to be touched. As you climb the imposing open-thread concrete staircase at rue François 1er, for example, try to resist caressing the creamy Bianco Raffaello marble wall to your right, or the ginger-veined black granite to your left – both deployed like couture fabric and offering a silky texture, with none of the usual coldness of stone. But if the materials can be smooth, Slimane’s architectural lines are unrelentingly rigorous – intersecting seams in concrete floors, parallel shelving, rectangular metal displays hanging above under-lit mirrored platforms. At the same time, there is a certain weightlessness to the design. Display cases and shelves seem to hover just off the ground. Any time two materials meet – such as brushed steel next to Grande Antique marble – they never touch directly, but float in close contact to one another.

Slimane has experimented in furniture design over the years, and has created a new collection for the Celine stores, which is set alongside vintage 1960s and 1970s pieces that showcase French woodworking expertise. Slimane’s furniture, most of it made of light or dark plywood, is elegantly minimalist, with an element of children’s building blocks or primitive thrones. (There are plans to produce it for sale at some point.) Contemporary artworks by established and emerging talents, either acquired or commissioned, are another major feature of the spaces, an initiative dubbed the Celine Art Project. Many of these are also tempting to touch – such as a yellowed rawhide cube wrapped in rope by American artist Rindon Johnson at the rue de Grenelle store. Some play off the decor, like Shawn Kuruneru’s ink-and-acrylic painting inspired by traditional Chinese landscape art, its abstract pattern echoing the marble of nearby display tables. The centrepiece of the rue de Grenelle store is a site-specific work by Oscar Tuazon. ‘Hedi is a strategic thinker, and he thinks about a brand on a global level,’ Tuazon says. ‘What’s amazing is that he combines this with a genuine passion for working with young talent. Musicians, artists, creative young people – they are the basis of his universe.’

As originally featured in the June 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*243)

INFORMATION

The new Celine stores are now open at 24 rue François 1er, Paris 8e and rue de Grenelle, Paris 7e. For more information, visit the Celine website

This month marks Wallpaper’s coming of age: our 21st anniversary. It’s also my tenth year as editor-in-chief, having switched from being creative director in April 2007. I must confess that my coming of age came a number of years earlier. Time flies.

One of the earliest projects I worked on in my new role was our inaugural October Guest Editors’ Issue. Now, many media outlets have given over their editorial reins to appropriate talents in order to bring a fresh perspective and generate some PR buzz. But because of Wallpaper’s multi-faceted editorial remit, we felt our spin on the concept should be equally all-encompassing – we would invite not just one, but up to three diverse creatives each year who would reflect our offering, but also push us to try new things.

So year one saw a purist industrial designer, Dieter Rams, an iconoclastic artist, Jeff Koons, and a much-more-than-a-fashion-designer fashion designer, Hedi Slimane. To rebalance the unintentional male bias for 2007, the next year saw Louise Bourgeois, Zaha Hadid and Rei Kawakubo bring art, architecture, and fashion girl power to our pages. Subsequent editions have seen Karl Lagerfeld, Philippe Starck, David Lynch, Robert Wilson, Kraftwerk, Christian Marclay, Lang Lang, Ole Scheeren, Taryn Simon, Laurie Simmons, Elmgreen & Dragset, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, William Wegman and Liz Diller have fun at our expense. That makes 21 in total, and therefore a convenient excuse to take a retrospective look, as well as request some updates for our latest issue. (Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm)

In addition to a 20-plus page section within the magazine, each of our Guest Editors was also invited to design a cover. Many called for unusual paper technologies – Hedi used specialist printing inks to simulate glitter, whereas Karl invited readers to strip the Dior Homme suit off his muse by means of a peelable layer. Starck constructed a transparent front cover using three layers of tracing paper. And Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter tacked on a pair of 3D specs, to go with his 3D cover portrait and portfolio of exclusive images tied to key Kraftwerk compositions.

If I had to pick one favourite project it would be Zaha’s. Her cover was a gatefold construction using multiple die-cuts, while inside she produced a 16-page die-cut sculpture, which was a take on her ‘Lotus’ room installation at that year’s Venice Biennale. ‘I want to put a big hole in the magazine’, she told us. We dutifully obliged.

Zaha was profiled by art critic Matthew Collings, who visited her at her London offices and provided a pleasant distraction from discussions about cement. Collings and ‘Big Z’, as he affectionately called her, hit it off immediately. ‘Her architecture is the greatest art of the moment,’ he said.

So it’s a huge pleasure for me and I think a fitting tribute to Zaha (who tragically passed away 18 months ago) that this anniversary issue’s cover was created by Zaha Hadid Architects and its principal and torchbearer, Patrik Schumacher.

Enjoy this special issue and raise a glass to Big Z.

Tony Chambers, Editor-in-Chief

As originally featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

Our thickest issue yet, the spine also happens to measure a serendipitous 21mm, in keeping with our celebration of 21 years, and 21 guest editors

INFORMATION

The October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* is out now. Subscribe here

Hedi Slimane started it. Last year the Saint Laurent creative force du jour added some African accents to a private salon in the brand’s flagship on Faubourg Saint-Honoré. And then the worlds of fashion, design and art simply had to follow.

American designers, the Haas Brothers, created creatures fabricated by female weavers from South Africa, that are currently on display at New York's Cooper Hewitt. Next was Valentino, with their theme of Africa and its culture for 2016, announcing that new windows in selected flagships would feature ethnographic African art pieces with contemporary works by Serge Uberti. 3.1 Phillip Lim joined in too, with a spring 2016 campaign photographed in Ethiopia and led by Ethiopian model and philanthropist Liya Kebede.

'It’s about taking people back to the elements and exposing them to the real essence of life through Africa’s beauty', says Boyd Ferguson, CEO of Cécile and Boyd, the designers of conservation luxury brand Singita. With the latest incarnation of their flagship, Boulders Lodge, they removed anything dated as 'tribal' and gave it a contemporary feel worthy of the entire continent.

But, perhaps, it all started with Pablo Picasso (before Kanye appropriated him) and his love for African art. 'I long represented one of France’s greatest photographers Lucien Clergue,' says Spencer Throckmorton, owner of Throckmorton Fine Art in New York. ' Seeing his photographs of Picasso with his collection of African art eventually led me to look closely at African art – I was enchanted. The market for African art, dominated by masks and sculptures of the human figure, is really healthy.'

But galleries like Stevenson, in Johannesburg and Cape Town (with an array of world-class and award winning African artists) and Galerie Bernard Dulon in Paris (which has been promoting primitive art from Africa since 2002) have been laying the foundation. The world, evidently, is playing catch up.

INFORMATION
 Fashion: Isabelle Kountoure. As originally featured in the March 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*204)

How does it feel to receive a standing ovation from Lady Gaga, Jane Fonda, Demi Moore, Justin Bieber, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Sylvester Stallone, Sam Smith, Lenny Kravitz, Zac Effron, Linda Ramone (et al)? One will have to ask Hedi Slimane, the creative director of Saint Laurent, who received this honour at the end of his Hollywood Palladium show in LA last night.

The rock-ready collection marked the 50th anniversary of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche (the original couture house’s prêt-a-porter line), mixing menswear with what was labelled ’Part I’ of womenswear (’Part II’ being shown in Paris on 7 March).

For A/W 2016 the performance travelled from Paris to Los Angeles, where the designer has lived since 2008, having also relocated the Saint Laurent design studio in 2012. In spite of the rumours of his impending departure from Saint Laurent, insistently denied by his reps, the designer quietly pieced together a sophisticated, gender-bending, state-of-the-art rock couture collection set against a backdrop designed by artist/collaborator Lucia Santina Ribisi

Announced via billboards plastered all over town, and perfectly timed five days before the Grammy Awards, the event was imbued with the ethos of its historic Hollywood Palladium venue – a 4,000 capacity ballroom in an Art Deco building transformed in the 1960s into a rock venue.

Last night it was filled with an epic line up of 13 bands on stage and 71 models and musicians wearing 93 looks. Showcased long after everyone had happily mingled on a red-lit dance floor, the collection itself was quintessential of Slimane’s signature style, collecting 1960s and 70s Hollywood-Strip-heyday references, intermixed with the couture house’s DNA courtesy of reissued archive prints.

The collection was also peppered with various musical homages, from 1970s British rock bands, to Bowie and the psych rock era – a theme first explored in Slimane’s S/S 2013 Saint Laurent collection.

Iconic, maxi length jupe culottes cut in bourgeois leather were paired with pussy bow silky blouses and high heeled glam boots, dramatised with studded, tapestry or embroidered jackets or gold mink coats, while many waists were cinched by oversized, buckled belts.

The show’s lanky, street-cast boys were adorned with dapper fedoras, silk scarves, military or velvet jackets, never parting from their signature Slimane legging-esque slender pants. The palette was an explosion of glitter, sequins, gold, silver, black against red lipstick notes, foxy browns and animal prints, the whole show shimmering in its own aura of ‘Rock my Religion’ ecstasy.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Saint Laurent’s website

‘When he first approached me about the collaboration it was via an early morning text,’ says 18-year-old artist Lucia Santina Ribisi, who awoke in her Californian dorm to a message from Saint Laurent creative director Hedi Slimane regarding his S/S 2016 Surf Sound collection.

Serendipitously, someone from Slimane’s studio had seen Ribisi’s Facebook page through one of their models. ‘I didn’t actually have any photos of my work, just one of me arranging paintings in my dad’s garage,’ she says. ‘It seemed like somewhat of a coincidence that they found me, which made it all the more surreal.’

Turns out the Saint Laurent polymath had actually taken Ribisi’s picture when she as too young to remember; Ribisi’s father is actor Giovanni Ribisi and mother painter Mariah Waterfall O'Brien, so she grew up amongst the melting pot of the Los Angeles art, music, film and fashion scene that Slimane likes to weave into his work.

Less than four weeks after sending the image of her Pet Name painting, Ribisi found herself in Paris watching a model walk down the runway in their Baby Teddy jacket. ‘I am really interested in how Saint Laurent seems to compare underground youth culture with high fashion,’ she says of Slimane’s tenure at the house. ‘The two worlds seem wildly different, but they come together somehow through Hedi.’ Adding, ‘The Surf Sound collection feels like the kind of California boy I've grown up with.’

As Slimane’s latest endorsement, Ribisi joins a line of artistic collaborators who have included John Baldessari and Luke Thomas, in addition to 81-year-old artist Billy Al Bengston this same season. With plans to attend the Pratt Institute for Art next autumn, Ribisi’s work spans performance art, sculpture and painting, exploring ideas of identity on the cusp of womanhood and rights of passage, given her early exit, pre-graduation from high school to attend specialist art institutions.

After spending the past summer working on a short film called Small Fry in Poland with director Eva Michon, Ribisi’s next project is her curatorial debut compiling a feminist art fundraiser in Los Angeles, which will address sexual objectification in social media.

But before then, she hopes to get her truck bed piece, sweetly titled My American Dream, on the road. ‘I had a fairly unstable childhood, always moving houses, three divorces, four different schools,’ she explains. ‘Much of my work is based on working through that. I have always wanted to buy a house at a young age so that I wouldn’t have to move. This year, I plan on building a tiny portable house, driving it around for a little bit, parking it somewhere gorgeous, and moving in,’ she says, adding, ‘Why not?’

INFORMATION

Ribisi wears their Baby Teddy Jacket, £3,920 by Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane

In January 2014, Saint Laurent's tailoring and flou atelier moved into Paris' historic Hôtel de Sénecterre at 24 Rue de L'Universite, reuniting the brand with its Rive Gauche roots. Built in 1685 by Thomas Gobert – the building planner of Louis XIV – the 2,100 sq m site's restoration was overseen by Saint Laurent creative director Hedi Slimane in the traditional 18th century French style.

Today, the designer unveiled his debut couture collection, shot onsite within the newly furnished building's palatial surrounds. The numbered, one-of-a-kind women's and menswear pieces, which recapture the spirit of the Rive Gauche – Le Smoking, bow blouses and silken gowns included – each sport the iconic Yves Saint Laurent label (in ivory silk no less), and will only be available to close friends of the house.

The site's interiors, shown to their full glory in Slimane's new couture campaign (pictured here), showcase an eclectic mix of traditional and deco furnishings in addition to an African undercurrent, tied to the house founder's exotic sphere of influence. Covering three floors, the salon couture is located on the first floor and the flou and tailleur ateliers on the second and third floors respectively.

Other modernist furnishing touches, curated by Slimane, include pieces by Jean-Michel Frank, Paul Dupré-Lafon and 1930s designer Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux, (Slimane's favourite modernist and the creator of a parchment desk that previously belonged to Yves Saint Laurent), while above the building's grand staircase, Slimane commissioned American artist Garth Weiser to paint a black and white diptych.

Outside, the property's precise, geometric garden has been replanted from 18th century archives with the help of a historian. 5 Avenue Marceau, the address of the last couture house, has since became La Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, and here in its historic heart of Saint Germain a new vigour burns strong.

As legend has it Yves Saint Laurent founded the notion of ready-to-wear in 1966 under the label Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, democratising fashion at a time when the Parisian mode scene was dominated by haughty couture houses. Yet, in spite of the Parisian brand's many tries to the city's infamous bohemian enclave, it has been many moons since its headquarters last inhabited the city's Left Bank.

However, today, creative director Hedi Slimane announced that by 2018 the house's current Rive Droite headquarters will be relocated to the 7th arrondisment's 37 Rue de Bellechasse. Shot here by Slimane, the former 17th century Penthemont Cistercian Abbey, which is currently in use by the French Ministry of Defence, will house the brand's new showroom and offices spanning 9180 sq m, while the designer's studio remains in Los Angeles.

This new Paris property will join the brand's atelier within Hôtel de Sénecterre at 24 Rue de L'Universite, which moved in January last year. The restoration of this 2100 sq m site, built in 1685 by Thomas Gobert, has been overseen by Slimane in the 18th century traditional French style and hosts the house's tailoring and flou ateliers. That said there is also a strong African undercurrent throughout, tied to its founder's exotic sphere of influence, and represented in a collection of Bamana masks and modern furniture pieces by Pierre Legrain and Deco designer Elizabeth Eyre de Lanux.

Other modernist furnishing pieces curated by Slimane include Jean-Michel Frank and Paul Dupré-Lafon, resulting in an elegantly eclectic mix of 1930s pieces within the building's grandiose, 18th century surrounds.

Music has always been a constant in Hedi Slimane’s lexicon and last weekend the Saint Laurent creative director hosted a private pre-Grammys bash in Los Angeles that was anything but the shiny, sanitised industry norm.

Held at Good Times at Davey Wavey’s on El Centro, the party saw guests ushered in via a secret entrance - a faux refrigerator - for a genuine, if not gritty, rock ’n’ roll experience that reminded us of Slimane’s recent Sonic exhibition in Paris.

With the event decreed a social media void, any trace of the rambunctious night was left solely to Slimane’s lens to record. The result is an intimate, black-and-white photographic essay that illustrates the industry’s persevering rock spirit - an extension of Sonic’s reportage style that saw the polymath capture the drama of life under the bright lights and on the road in minute detail.

The venue’s snug stage hosted a line-up that included Sunflower Bean (singer/bassist Julia Cumming has twice graced Saint Laurent’s runways), Sky Ferreira, Bleached, The Garden and Mini Mansions, as well as as DJ sets by Slimane’s friends Jonathan Pierce (from The Drums) and Ioanna Gika of Io Echo. The crowd was similarly stocked with a cast of Slimane’s past and present portraiture subjects, including a mix of young Hollywood actors and musical mainstays, such as Daft Punk, Mark Ronson, Queens of the Stone Age and the Arctic Monkeys.

Slimane’s interest in music first formed during his youth after being gifted a copy of Bowie’s David Live album - the star peacocking on its record sleeve in a blue Freddie Burretti suit. However, more than the clothes, it was the creative synergy of music photography that drew Slimane in - the lighting, composition, and energy - and he’s been capturing it ever since.

Hedi Slimane may have lunged back in the headlines for his role as creative director at luxury giant Saint Laurent, but his endearing fervor for photography is the subject of a new exhibition at Paris' Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent.

Titled 'Sonic', the black-and-white photographic essay delves into Slimane's archive from the past 15 years. In the intimate portrait and reportage series, he's captured the drama of life on the road and under the bright lights in intricate detail.

Raw and digitally unretouched, the exhibition - which Wallpaper* previewed in our current issue (see W*187) - extends a backstage pass to the gritty world of rock 'n' roll, from Elvis' Graceland mansion (though don't expect those famed gates) to the ranch of Jerry Lee Lewis (whom he dubs 'the first punk rocker in history'). Along the way are intimate sittings with stage legends Lou Reed, Keith Richards and Amy Winehouse.

More than an exhibition, this is Slimane's analogue approach to an industry that's currently being manhandled by the digital world. 'Sonic' examines how this genre has engaged the creative over the years, erstwhile profiling its key players.

As it turns out, Slimane's interest in rock storytelling was originally ignited during his teens by a gifted copy of Bowie's David Live album - the star peacocking on its record sleeve in a boxy, double-breasted blue Freddie Burretti suit. But more than the costumes, it was the creative synergy of this form of photography that drew in Slimane: the lighting, the composition, the energy. As a result, the polymath has been recording life (and, more specifically, the music scene) through his lens ever since.

At Dior Homme, Slimane the designer extended his gaze to tailoring the look of rock's next generation. The Libertines, The Kills, Beck, Franz Ferdinand, Jack White and Mick Jagger all famously suited up in his slim-line threads. He was also behind the artwork for Phoenix's Alphabetical album during this period.

The music world was similarly where Slimane spent much of his five-year sabbatical from fashion - quite happily snapping. Even today, designing for Saint Laurent, music remains his genesis - a single track often providing the season's character, proportion and hair direction.

Spanning London, New York and Los Angeles, the exhibition places particular emphasis on Slimane's California period, which began in 2007 and resulted in the 2011 exhibition 'California Song' at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. On show until January 2015, 'Sonic' is complemented by a video installation juxtaposing the musical cycles of London (2003-2007) and California (2007-2014). A documentary-style sequence, it poignantly contrasts two generations of performers and their fans.

ADDRESS

Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent
5 Avenue Marceau
75116 Paris

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The recently reopened Saint Laurent concept store on London's Sloane Street is the latest in a succession of the French house's stores to be revamped by the brand's creative director Hedi Slimane - as featured in our December 2013 issue (see W* 177). Slimane, who also masterminded the Parisian house's recent rebranding - a risky but rewarding endeavour that scored the label a 2013 Wallpaper* Design Award - took his design cues from the materials and techniques used by the artists and architects of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM).

The flagship's precise and generously-proportioned architecture is enhanced by a dazzling mirrored staircase, mirrored shelves and expansive white marble floors and walls. Dado rails are crafted from black silk marble, and Art Deco-inspired nickel and gold-plated brass vitrines provide metallic accents.

ADDRESS

Saint Laurent
171-172 Sloane Street
London, SW1X 9QG

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You must be brave to dare to tinker with an established brand's logo. To alter the actual name, not just the logo, requires steely courage. And in the fashion world, you don't get a more established name or brand than Yves Saint Laurent.

So when it was announced in June 2012 that newly appointed creative director Hedi Slimane was to alter not only the graphic language, but also the actual nomenclature of the house, the tremors of disapproval were felt all the way from Madison Avenue to Avenue Montaigne. When the new logo made its first appearance a month later, the shrieks of disapprobation went up a notch. To drop 'Yves' was disrespectful enough, but to replace painter Cassandre's mythical 1961 YSL logotype altogether was utter lunacy, surely?

But we beg to differ. Why? Primarily because most of these knee-jerk, social media-fuelled reactions were misinformed and ignorant. So we'd like to set the record straight.

By calling the new line Saint Laurent, Slimane has, in fact, shown intelligence and great respect to Mr Yves Saint Laurent. The new logo design gives a reverent nod to the very beginnings of his game-changing, ready-to-wear collection in 1966, adopting a similar appellation to the original 'Saint Laurent Rive Gauche', as well as utilising the Helvetica font styles chosen during that revolutionary era.

This smart trick of 'retro-branding' returns the ready-to-wear to the spirit of the origins of the line, but marks a new era.

'It made sense today to transpose these principles and recover the original name and typeface,' Slimane explained in a rare interview. 'The name Rive Gauche disappeared in the past then resurfaced several times. It seems intrinsic to the universe of Yves Saint Laurent, without it being useful to refer to it literally today. We thus went to the essential, a name
that is written as it is spoken every day: Saint Laurent, unequivocally.'

This sensitivity and respect for the Parisian house is not at all surprising as Slimane's early career highlight was at YSL as ready-to-wear director of men's collections under the stewardship of Mr Laurent himself. Famously, he then went on to revolutionise the male silhouette at Dior Homme before taking a five-year hiatus from fashion design, moving to Los Angeles (where he continues to live and work) to hone his photographic skills and develop as an artist.

It was at the beginning of this fashion sabbatical that Wallpaper* got to know and like Hedi - and why we must disclose a certain positive bias. As one of our first trio of Guest Editors in 2007 (W*103), we experienced and got to understand his philosophies, working methods and to-the-millimetre approach first-hand.

Meetings in New York, London and Paris were always pleasant, productive and illuminating. Slimane came across as a highly intelligent, deeply curious man who knew that in the turbulent world of fashion, total creative control and strong financial support was essential. But Slimane's interests beyond the narrow confines of fashion were clear, abundant and very refreshing. Music is, of course, a huge influence, but his awareness and passion for typography, architecture and intelligent industrial design (Dieter Rams, in particular) was more of a surprise.

But it was no surprise to us that Slimane's attention during those first months in the new job would be paid to the often neglected areas of visual communication: 'Concentrating on the base before approaching the form. The fundamentals, the signs, the language, before the fashion,' he will tell you.

Old-school graphic design fans will be relieved to hear that the classic YSL has not, of course, been entirely deleted. The new stripped-back and minimal Helvetica will sit perfectly (as it originally did) with the rhythmic charm of Cassandre's monogram. Yves may be absent, but we feel certain he would approve. 

The new logo design gives a reverent nod to the very beginnings of Mr Yves Saint Laurent game-changing, ready-to-wear collection in 1966, adopting a similar appellation to the original 'Saint Laurent Rive Gauche', as well as utilising the Helvetica font styles chosen during that revolutionary era