How the Work—And Words—of Phoebe Philo Are Helping This Editor Navigate Troubled Times
This story is part of Past/Present, a series highlighting images and articles from Vogue that have personal significance to our editors.
As a teenager in a sleepy coastal town, I looked to Phoebe Philo as a lifeline to a world of honest beauty and glamour with substance. Her designs, soundtracks, and reference images inspired me; her words, notoriously rare, guided me. I gathered as many of these things around me as I could, scouring eBay for the inspiration books that were left on guests’ seats and delighting in being gifted a vinyl single of Jaydee’s ’90s techno hit “Plastic Dreams,” the thumping soundtrack to Philo’s Céline debut. I almost used a line taken from a 2011 interview she did with Style.com describing her inspiration—“that idea of the kind of woman who doesn’t care what she looks like when she’s dancing”—as my yearbook quote. I still regret that I didn’t run with it, even though it wouldn’t have made much sense in the sea of headshots.
In the fall of 2014, I was studying in London, and as the new kid I felt a bit lost and insecure. Alone in my dorm room, I logged on to watch Style.com’s video of the spring 2015 Céline collection. And as jackhammers tore up the street in the alley below, there was Philo, in her soothing voice, speaking about how vulnerability, uncertainty, and risk had shaped the collection. “Being vulnerable is a really important part of being creative,” she said. This was the first time I heard someone be open about the correlation between the two, and I began to understand that opening up and engaging honestly with our emotions helps us develop trust in our ideas and ourselves. Today we speak of vulnerability in terms of health and safety; Philo was speaking to the vulnerability of the heart and the mind—two things that must remain open during these turbulent times.
Uncertainty has become the norm. We are at the mercy of the news reports and text alerts. Philo dared to be open to the unknown. She spoke of the contemporary “obsession with certainty, our obsession with needing to know an outcome” but knew that answers are to be found only by taking things “one day after the other.” Her spring 2015 collection offered pieces to help you get through unscripted days. There were twinelike belts with gold charms tied around coats, flat shoes that felt grounded and strong, cutouts that exposed bits of skin, and ceramic charms in the shapes of hands and lips—points of contact that are now restricted or feared.
Philo designed clothing that was like soft armor. Looking at the spring 2015 collection today, I can imagine her posing questions to herself, like, Who will wear this? Will it bring them joy? Will it last? At Céline, Philo navigated the path between vulnerability and strength. That’s what we are all trying to do at this time of our lives. Guiding me through my days is Philo’s advice, offered with a shy smile in that 2015 video: “It’s all going to be fine. Letting go.... Breathing.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
