Hedi Slimane’s First Celine Runway Show Will Make the Designer's Fans Very Happy

Hedi Slimane’s first runway show for Celine began with drumming, but not the booming, thrashing kind of garage band beats you might expect from the music obsessed creator. Instead, it was a patter produced by members of the French Republican Guard playing tenor drums. The clatter reverberated around the black box Slimane erected on the grounds of Les Invalides, a sprawling complex built to honor the country’s military (and Napoleon's final resting place). Especially given the source, it was hard not to consider the martial music as a battlecry: the oncoming charge of a new Celine from the notoriously exacting designer—a designer who always marches to the beat of his own drum—was imminent.

In the last twenty years, no designer has had a greater influence on how men dress than Hedi Slimane. From his breakthrough in the early 2000s at Dior Homme, where the Italian-Tunisian designer ushered in slim tailoring and skinny jeans that went against the prevailing silhouettes at the time (and for a good decade before it), to his return to fashion in 2012 at Saint Laurent, where his moto-jacket-wearing luxe rock god look is still trickling down through the market, Slimane’s ability to create an aesthetic universes for customers and retailers—and more than a few imitators—is unmatched. (The speed with which his designs get ripped off should be proof enough of his clout). The designer’s influence is the reason Chelsea boots seem like a very good idea these days and you can readily find drainpipe jeans just about anywhere. Your go-to suit may not have been designed by Slimane, but he had a hand in its slim cut and reigned-in lapels. When Slimane shows up to overhaul a house, our wardrobes often follow suit, which is why the industry at large—and the legions of Slimane’s fans—have been hungry for what’s next since he was announced as Celine’s Artistic, Creative and Image Director earlier this year.

But Slimane didn’t just take over the creative helm from another obsessed-over designer, Phoebe Philo; his appointment at Celine in February came with added responsibilities that include men’s, couture, and fragrance lines. Part of that is by Slimane’s design: only a handful of houses actually produce couture and while he dabbled in it at Saint Laurent, this puts him among fashion’s creative elite. Another part (most?) of that is to turn Celine into a luxury behemoth on par with the Pradas or Guccis of the world. So Slimane got to work. He dropped the accent (a return to the brand’s original logo), gutted Celine’s Instagram account, and went about remaking the house as he desired, starting with a slow tease of black-and-white images starring the kinds of young beautiful people that populate his universe. It worked before. Why not again?

Titled “Paris La Nuit”, the show began with a smaller black box opening to reveal its disco ball geode insides; the first look—an exaggerated sleeve baby doll dress in black-and-white-polka dots—emerged to the pulsing synthy disco sounds of a commissioned La Femme track titled “Runway.” What followed was 95 more men and women in razor sharp tailoring (in one, two, three-button and double-breasted stances), micro throwback prom dresses, and every conceivable cut of leather jacket, all more ‘80s club kid than gearhead. It was almost all black, save for a few touches of white, silver, and gold and a select few women’s pieces rendered in bold red and emerald green. A collaboration with artist Christian Marclay yielded couture-like embroideries and patches using the artist's “onomatopoeic” paintings and wham-pow-wow comic book-like collages.

It wasn’t as severe as some Dior Homme collections, nor as bohemian as S.L.P.; these were stealthily elegant clothes, but all unmistakably Slimane. Take the second look: a black six-button Double breasted jacket with strong shoulders paired with a graphic white-and-black stripe dress shirt, narrow tie (A necktie! On a runway! In 2018!), and double-pleated pants cropped above the ankle. Subtract the wraparound shades and remove it from the body of a model with the metabolic rate of an 18 year-old (who is also, probably, 18), and what remains is an ensemble that would appeal to a wide swath of guys—from boardroom-dwelling LVMH executives to Mark Ronson. (Both were in the audience). The same could be said of most of the collection. These are clothes that may not appear revolutionary in photos, but in real life bear markers of pristine construction.

Fittingly, the collection was identified in the show notes as “non seasonal.” Slimane’s no-so-secret weapon is to get shoppers to open their wallets for fashion that doesn’t come with an expiration date. The downright gentlemanly double-breasted khaki trench coat from look four won’t suddenly fall out of favor in two years or twenty. That goes a long way when you’re talking about the premium prices associated with Celine wares. And in this fashion moment, a.k.a. The Golden Age of Sweatpants, offering up wearable, well-made clothes that don’t announce themselves from a mile away is an almost radical proposition.

Slimane’s collections tend to polarize audiences, and his first lineup for Celine has proven no exception. But Slimane was never going to do an about face and adopt Philo’s low-octane comfortable minimalist vibe, the same way Phoebe Philo’s next collection won’t be heavy on skinny jeans and leather. Any designer with a clear cut vision evolves in degrees, not broad strokes. Like Philo or Tom Ford or Rick Owens or Thom Browne, Slimane creates clothes, campaigns, and stores for his aesthetic universe and no one else’s. It just so happens that a lot of customers want in, even if the price of admission now hovers around four figures.