Why Everyone is Talking About Celine (And Why It Matters)

Hi friends!

Today, we will temporarily veer off our regular programming en lieu of a Fashion 101 that was requested by a handful of those who have yet to understand why their Instagram feeds are flooded with enraged commentary about the latest Celine show. Personally, I’m so excited that something other than Bella’s crop tops and Yeezy pantyhose has reached those with little interest in the fashion world, that I will gladly utilize my (waning) industry knowledge to decipher.

Let’s start with a quick crash course. Here is what you need to know before we proceed:

Most major fashion houses are owned by huge luxury conglomerates, the key players being LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Celine, etc.) and Kering (Gucci, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, etc.)  These parent companies hire creative directors (i.e. head designers), who, in turn, imbue the brands with their respective vision.  Sometimes, the creative directors are celebrities in their own right (think Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel); other times they are behind-the-scene mavericks who are largely unknown to the public. Sometimes, they respect the inherent brand codes; other times they have their own, impenetrable vision. Like with any job, they can stay anywhere from one season to a few decades. The most important thing, to the suits-in-command, is that they SELL.

Now, let’s zoom in on Celine, which has been around since 1945 and was purchased by LVMH in the 90’s, earning itself a “ladies of the 16ème who lunch” reputation over the years.  This all changed in 2008, when LVMH hired a brilliant British designer named Phoebe Philo to fully revamp the house.

From the first collection, it was f*cking fantastic.  The shapes were liberating, the colors were bold, the jewelry looked like a Bauhaus dreamland… It was a veritable breath of fresh air, a hall pass for women to abandon child-sized constraints, wave a middle finger at hyper-sexualized sartorial restrictions, and wear clothes that made them feel like their most interesting and unique selves. It was female emancipation before the #TimesUp era, and a loyal following of “Philophiles” was formed (please watch this video for context).

Meanwhile, over at Kering, another movement was forming. YSL was losing cache (and market share), so its execs sought out a  man-child  designer named Hedi Slimane to revamp it. At the time, Slimane was best known for “revolutionizing” men’s fashion by making Dior Homme suits skinny and small. The minute he got to YSL, he made everything skinny and small. He chopped the “Yves” off the name, he snipped skirts down to belts, and shrunk silhouettes into teeny-tiny straightjackets for the prepubescent set. In the kingdom of Fashun, it was practically the sartorial opposition to Céline. And yet, like a Kardashian, he had mass appeal (and excellent margins), turning Saint Laurent into a moneymaker at record speed.

Klassy stuff. With a K. 

Fast–forward to 2016/17. Celine (then Céline, with an accent) was performing well – with the potential to do even better. LVMH knew it had a cash cow on its hands and was eager to pump it into a cash FARM. Phoebe Philo, independent to the core, wasn’t interested, which meant that they needed a new farmer to drive their expansion plan. And so they searched far and wide (or maybe they didn’t?) until they finally hired… Hedi.

Yup, the King of the Sequin was coming to the Feminist Empire. It was a bizarre, unapologetically money-driven decision that felt insulting to Céline loyalists everywhere. And, yet, they anticipated the show, hoping that Slimane would respect the identity that they had grown so attached to. Kind of like when we all waited for Trump to be “better than his campaign.” Wishful thinking, the pastime of fools.

Nah. First, he removed the accent, offering some bogus, hyper-intellectualized explanation. Then, last week, he sent this down the runway (peruse the full fiasco here)

Looks familiar? Hey, at least he’s keeping the sequin industry in business.

To add insult to injury, the show happened on the exact same day as the Kavanaugh hearing, enraging devout Céline fans, many of whom happen to be brilliant journalists and thought leaders, even more. At the same moments that (inordinately powerful) men in Washington were attempting to stifle a woman, just like they had for decades, an (inordinately powerful) man in Paris was dictating women to wear borderline-disparaging teen disco garb that they had seen a million times over. In the words of my friend Julia Reiss, who wrote a great article on the topic, “If there was one thing to take away from both the hearing and the runway, it was that what women have to say and what they want don’t matter. No one is listening. Not on Capitol Hill and not at LVMH.”

To me, it felt like my boyfriend had cheated on me with a stripper – too disgusting to ever go back.

Sure, it’s just fashion. But, as Julia points out, fashion is a reflection of our time – and this happens to be an important time of women, a renaissance of individuality and self-acceptance that will lay out a better future for our daughters. Because, after all the #metoo hashtags and “future is female” t-shirts and done with, what we should hope to remain is a mentality shift in which women feel confident to do, wear and be anything they damn please. (And please don’t tell me they already do as I munch on a baby carrot in an effort to fit into my Levi’s – there is still so much work to be done.) Phoebe Philo is a quiet trailblazer who, through her work, gave us spectacular tools to do so – to make our own choices, our own decisions, and even our own mistakes (enter her beloved “ugly shoes”). In her own words: “I have no problem with a woman wearing anything as long as she has chosen to wear it for herself. But I do think there are too many images of women that are sexualised and too many examples of women dressing for other people and disempowering themselves in the process.”

To the most judicious, this is what Slimane is doing: disempowering us by instructing us to live in the past. Well, we don’t want to live in the past. We want to walk towards the future, ugly shoes and all.

P.S. Actually, I’m walking over to FIT and demanding a job.