Celine F/W 2023.24 Los Angeles

[avonlea002]

I love it. No gimmicks or pandering to social media crowd. Everything looks so beautiful and well made. The finale with gowns was sublime.

 

[Norden]

At this point his Celine exists in its own vacuum of time and space. I think it’s great for what it is. It’s like a traveling show. Same clothes slightly changed set list.

 

[Mutterlein]

Seeing images of his runways make me cringe.

The clothes might sell but I don't know if I can say they're relevant.

I liked when he was doing really bourgeois '70s Celine, but this is sort of a step backwards for me.

I think I can go ahead and permanently tune out of whatever Hedi does in the future.

The fragrances are really nice.

 

[MulletProof]

Why rely on the fickleness of social media when can just show the Koreans a flashing sign that says 'please, let me in, I'll give you Lisa and Rose and one of the 16 members of that boy band you love so much', and show this at the one venue where people seem to be camping out on the sidewalk 24/7 365 days a year in the name of kpop..

(currently working my *** off chasing after korean/hong kong wallets like a starved dog myself lol seriously not judging )

 

[Lola701]

Honestly, this is a quite good collection, very commercial, and Hedi SELLS (and a lot (+ 65% compared to Phoebe)).
And still no CondéNast in the audience, obviously ! Go Hedi !

Comparing the incomparable almost…
Of course he will sell more than Phoebe with e-commerce, extensive distribution, menswear and fragrances and overall more merchandise…
The contrary would be alarming.

 

[Mutterlein]

Comparing the incomparable almost…
Of course he will sell more than Phoebe with e-commerce, extensive distribution, menswear and fragrances and overall more merchandise…
The contrary would be alarming.

Touché.

 

[Br3ncon1]

Was there last night and the whole show was so fun, though it felt more of a concert than anything. But maybe that's the point. Those shoes and oversized handbags will probably sell very well.

 

[jeanclaude]

Change the Celine logo in the background for "Saint Laurent", and there is no difference at all...

 

[volft]

Was there last night and the whole show was so fun, though it felt more of a concert than anything. But maybe that's the point. Those shoes and oversized handbags will probably sell very well.

Some insight into Hedi's thought process when designing:

“I presume the musicians I knew early on, or that I met in my early days designing, and even through today, had an understanding that I was coming from music, from that perspective of the stage,” says Slimane to Goodman describing that intuitive kinship with the musicians he works with. “They probably simply recognized themselves in my design and approached me for that reason. It was always exciting to see my clothes ending up on stage where they participated to the performance.”

This is who Hedi envisions when designing. People have always looked up to musicians and wanted to emulate their style, so this is why Hedi's work resonates with the market. Anyone can design clothes that musicians might wear, but not everybody has Hedi's pedigree in dressing rockstars and being so involved in the scene. It helps imbue his work with authenticity.

Both the 2 recent women's collections' focus on the indie revival is just perfect timing. Hard to imagine it was a coincidence to be timed so recently after the release of Meet Me in the Bathroom. It is all already planted into people's subconscious and Hedi is pushing it before this style hits critical mass.

Great to see royalty involved. One thing that definitely sets his Celine apart from his Saint Laurent is that his Celine is more aristocratic.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - DECEMBER 08: (L-R) Ben-Sylvester Strautmann and Princess Alexandra of Hanover attend Celine at The Wiltern on December 08, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for CELINE)

His Celine's momentum is really picking up steam, and I can believe that Bernard is very happy. After conquering the Asian market, I can't help but feel like this show is them wanting to have more presence in the West, specifically North America. I feel like with Balenciaga's fall from grace, and unknown future of Gucci, Celine has more of an opportunity to take a slice from the pie in the West.

 

[tricotineacetat]

It remains to be seen how much the 'indie sleaze' trend will pick up steam and remain in favor of customers, but I'm highly doubting it will be as impactful as the first time around, when people like Kate Moss, Pete Doherty, Sienna Miller, Irina Lazareanu etc. popularized the look - It was backed up by a much larger cultural momentum, resulting in every woman for sometime copying the look of Kate Moss, whereas today it is missing authentic proponents a new generation can look up to - Their moms probably never stopped wearing skinny jeans so why should the kids do so now? Also, trends are a much more fragmented affair unlike in the early 2000s when this whole Indie look really dominated the way people dressed - not only through Hedi Slimane's work at Dior but also Phoebe Philo's Chloe or Christophe Decarnin's Balmain.

 

[Remi17]

Long time lurker on this forum and I have to say I enjoy all your comments so much on each season’s collections. I finally have the courage to post. So here is my humble take. I agree the dresses are gorgeous, the show for me feels like the too recent past everything reminds me of topshop in its heyday. But having been in Selfridges recently I can see why sales have doubled. Amongst all the neon cut out chaos of other brands there is no doubt about the quality and wearability of Hedi’s Celine. While he projects this rock star image for his collections I believe the core Celine customer is actually quite conservative. In terms of the indie sleaze revival there aren’t really any big rock bands at the moment which is why I feel apart from instagram throwback accounts it will be hard to find authentic current references from a cultural perspective to appeal to a younger audience. The whole kate moss/ pete doherty era was a lifestyle they portrayed and lived in that moment. Fame is spread so thinly amongst so many people these days it will be hard to replicate that mass influence undiluted. Also Hedi’s fashion is so interlinked with rock music but then aligns with Kpop stars to promote it for me it’s all a bit incoherent. But In a business sense it is clearly working and making money.

 

[Nomar]

I like Heidi's imagery for Celine but his collections are really such a bore. I've only seen snippets of this and that's all I need.

 

[SophiaVB]

How Hedi Slimane Doubled Celine Sales
The brand, which has surpassed €2 billion in annual revenue, celebrated its momentum with a fashion show-meets-concert in Los Angeles, where the biggest rock star was arguably the designer.

LOS ANGELES — On Thursday night, as a cold(ish) spell passed through Southern California, the designer Hedi Slimane lit up the facade of the Wiltern, an art deco theatre in Hollywood, with the name Celine, manufacturing a fashion show-meets-rock concert straight out of 2005.

The crowd consisted not of fashion industry people, but friends-of-the-house types. Iggy Pop, Interpol and The Strokes all performed. The Kills’ Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart DJed. The White Stripes frontman Jack White created the “original soundtrack” that ran on repeat during a runway show populated with idealised takes on the looks that epitomised the era, from kneecap-tight skinny jeans to slouchy boots and ruffled blouses — even a version of the dropped-hem mini so ubiquitous at the time. (Only Pete Doherty, one of the period’s most memorable, and maniacal, rock stars, was missing.)

Slimane called the outing the “Age of Indieness.” Back in the mid-aughts, the then-Dior Homme designer’s skinny silhouettes were made for men, even if they were also worn by adventurous women. Now, he’s mining the look — rebranded “indie sleaze” by the TikTok generation — to create women’s pieces he might have dreamed up 20 years ago.

But Slimane’s continuous playing of the same backbeat has proven to be a valuable asset. For this performance, he once again sold the audience — including several rows of celebrities, from Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to “Top Gun: Maverick” star Miles Teller to Dustin Hoffman — on sequined gold dresses, little collarless jackets and military capes, now inflected with the 1970s bourgeois sensibilities in the DNA of Celine, where Slimane has more than doubled sales since his arrival.


Celine doesn’t have as rich a history, nor as many recognisable brand signifiers, as Saint Laurent, the Kering-owned house that Slimane rebuilt in the 2010s. And yet, this year, it is expected to generate at least €2.2 billion ($2.3 billion) in annual revenue, according to analysts, just meeting the target set by LVMH chief executive and chairman Bernard Arnault in 2018. That’s despite a rocky start — Slimane’s radical overhaul of the brand upset devotees of former designer Phoebe Philo — and the shock of the pandemic.

While LVMH does not break out revenue figures for its brands, Celine did share that revenue has multiplied 2.5 times since Slimane’s arrival, with growth across all categories and regions, even in struggling China. In mature markets like Europe and Japan, sales have doubled. In the United States, where the brand was historically unrepresented, they have tripled. And not only are there more customers, but they are younger than they used to be.

“He’s consistent, and the customer today values consistency more than ever,” said Robert Burke, a retail advisor. “They don’t want to look like a fashion victim. There’s some certainty, stability, with Celine.”

For Slimane, there’s no other way of working. “You can only be one thing and only want to be one thing or remembered for one thing … you can only be lucky enough to have one style, a style of your own that becomes a caricature of you, your own ‘sound,’” the designer told journalist Lizzy Goodman during a November 2022 conversation that appeared in a hard-cover pamphlet sent out by the brand. (He also collaborated with Goodman on a poster for the documentary based on her book, “Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011.”) “I’m probably synonymous [with] punk rock and indieness in fashion, beside being known for my androgynous models. I have been precisely this in fashion for more than 20 years. This is the caricature I gladly own.”

At Celine, Slimane’s insistence on consistency is evident in the way he has developed each category. The brand’s handbag offering still includes successes from Philo’s tenure — her Belt bag remains the best seller at Neiman Marcus, for instance. But from removing the accent on the “e” on each bag’s name stamp, to introducing new styles that look at once familiar and fresh, every little bit now reflects his exacting vision.

Burke cited the Ava, a banana-boat shoulder bag that starts at just $990, as a standout, although the Triomphe line, a series of flap bags with a double-C clasp — featured heavily in the show — is now the brand’s top-selling leather-goods range. Part of the allure may be Celine’s relatively low reliance on logos, especially as some shoppers back away from obvious branding: the Triomphe symbol, which has been inserted into sunglasses and belts, too, has a vintage, fairly understated quality.

“Our customer is embracing the idea of a more subtle logo,” said Lana Todorovich, chief merchant at Neiman Marcus.

But it’s not only the bags that are selling. Women’s ready-to-wear has also grown significantly this year in particular, according to multiple retailers. At Neiman Marcus, for instance, sales of Celine ready-to-wear have tripled since 2019.


“When we came out of the pandemic, there was a desire to celebrate in an extroverted way,” Todorovich said. “Now, a normalised way of approaching fashion is coming back.”

Slimane’s talent is in making the best-in-class version of “normal,” everyday items — vintage Levi’s, a trench, a blazer — or the types of things that most luxury shoppers don’t have the patience, or acumen, to thrift. At Celine, he has restructured the atelier into two divisions — tailoring and flou — to allow for the development of couture-level garments, which account for roughly 20 percent of the overall runway collection.

The finale of the Celine Winter 2023 show, "The Age of Indieness," which took place on Dec. 8, 2022, at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, California. (Celine)

And like most other top-tier fashion brands, Celine has ventured further and further into the highest end of pricing, not only with accessories — such as the personalised Haute Maroquinerie Triomphe, with hardware made of 18k gold — but also through the couture-like pieces it designs for its growing list of private clients.

A show in Los Angeles, where Slimane lived for almost a decade until 2016, highlights the importance of the US market, which has played an outsized role in top-line growth for luxury brands in recent years. But it was also something of a celebration of Celine’s momentum.

“Where Celine is today and where it was a few years ago is night and day,” Burke said. “They’ve nurtured it, and now it’s able to stand on its own.”

How Hedi Slimane Doubled Celine Sales

 

[LadyJunon]

How Hedi Slimane Doubled Celine Sales

Philophiles right now:

 

[LadyJunon]

Also we have a full lookbook on Tagwalk, but it's almost 90 looks long...

 

[Lola701]

^^
Not that I consider myself as a Philophile but I think Slimane fans are somehow pushing that philophiles obsessions…As if there was a war. I feel like from Bottega Veneta to The Row, they have moved on.

The success of Hedi should be celebrated on it own…

@volft How does it relate to the critique and the appreciation of the show tho? I don’t think anybody critiquing the SHOW has a problem with how the clothes are shopped in the stores. Princess Caroline looks good but once again, she went to the store…Which is unrelated to the show.

I myself I’ve seen a Celine piece that I have planned to buy (a navy blue Cashmere Vareuse) but even if I will buy that Celine by Hedi piece, it will not change my personal appreciation of the show.
There are little chances that the women that will buy the pieces from this show will style them in the way Hedi styled them…Because it has more to do with personal style. But then again I think there’s a difference between the appreciation of a show, a vision for the moment and the long-lasting reality of retail.

And for the most part, people are critiquing the show and they are met with arguments regarding revenues and personal people’s buying decisions.

 

[george5]

Honestly, this is a quite good collection, very commercial, and Hedi SELLS (and a lot (+ 65% compared to Phoebe)).
And still no CondéNast in the audience, obviously ! Go Hedi !

Oh really ? But online fashion "experts" told us Celine would go up in flames after Phoebe departure... Seems like even though her tenure did very good, it simply wasn't this mega smash her fans say it is. I mean, if the demand for her was THAT high she wouldn't be struggling to put together a niche brand with 3-4 collections yearly at most.

 

[IndigoHomme]

Repetitive? Yes. I love it? Of course.

 

[Machinegumm]

Pheobe's Celine was very influential, so people assume she must've been much more profitable than she actually was. Sure, she made money, but not THAT much.

Anyway, not my cuppa since this is pretty much standard Hedi; but he knows his clientele and rakes in the coals. Never change a winning tactic.

 

[susseinmcswanny]

I haven’t used my brain to try to understand why I am starting to enjoy and accept Celine but here I am