CELINE: UNMISTAKABLE FRENCH STYLE

Hedi Slimane continues delving into Parisienne style with even closer attention to details in a truly wearable collection.

For the presentation of the fall/winter 21-22 collection Hedi Slimane, artistic director of Celine, chose the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte south-east of Paris, erected at the behest of Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of the finances of Louis XIV.

In this, the veritable cradle of French style, the castle stands on a raised plateau surrounded by woods defining the spaces harmonically distributed between lakes, canals, fountains, paths and parterre recalling the masterpieces of André Le Nôtre himself, landscape architect of the Palace of Versailles.

A place where you can really breathe the esprit français and feel the iconic, authentic style of the Parisienne, a paradigm of elegance and femininity never too rigid or formal.

My youth was nothing but black storm crossed now and then by brilliant suns“, reads the verse of Charles Baudelaire Slimane quotes to describe the attitude of the models parading in masculine jackets worn over silk blouses with bows, trenchcoats over hoodies, denim pants under knitted crop tops and herringbone coats over sequined dresses.

All formally elegant looks narrating a cultured femininity that moves through puffers and bombers, tailored jackets and blazers, shimmering short dresses and rigid golden skirts modelled like domes taking us back to the magical 90’s and Isabelle Adjani’s hit written by Serge Gainsbourg, and giving us a new perspective on the simple, perhaps the one we need to recover from this long period of suspended animation. One of Slimane’s great merits lies in his ability to analyse the reality of today’s fashion with almost Bergsonian pragmatism, giving a new perspective to what seems indefinable and that always achieves definition through original combinations of details, the details of French style that only personal skill can put together.