Hard to keep Hedi Slimane away from places with palm trees and famous beaches these days: His spring 2023 collection for Celine, captured in Saint-Tropez and revealed online Thursday more than six weeks after the conclusion of Paris Fashion Week, comes just ahead of his very early reveal of Celine’s fall 2023 collection, scheduled for Dec. 8 in Los Angeles.
Here was another well realized and appealing collection, bang on trend with the Y2K craze, a period that Slimane documented, and helped shape, during his dazzling Dior Homme days.
His original skinny jeans return in a low-rise guise in Japanese denim. And the slim tailoring that reverberated in menswear for more than a decade is now interpreted for women, alongside his gold-buttoned cardigan jackets and boxier boyfriend styles.
In his film, roving cameras captured models parading on a pier, each outfit a careful mélange of homespun and rock ‘n’ roll elements: pert minidresses, lacy jackets, sailor sweaters, HotPants, terrific leather blousons and sexy crochet bra tops.
Wash-and-go hair, biker boots and black sunglasses finished off most of the looks, exuding an up-all-night cool.
Slimane called on his musician buddies of 20 years, Carl Barât and Pete Doherty of The Libertines, for the soundtrack, which renewed memories of Doherty and his then-girlfriend Kate Moss looking fabulous in the muck at Glastonbury.
It’s been a long time since the exacting designer came to the phone to discuss a collection but he shared interesting tidbits in the extensive press notes, including the fact that he settled in Ramatuelle, in the gulf of Saint-Tropez, when he arrived at Celine in 2018.
The house clarified that Slimane today splits his time between Paris and the South of France, and this spring 2023 collection reveal completes his French Riviera cycle. (The two previous ones were filmed in Nice and Monaco.)
The press notes also reveal that Slimane’s beach house in Ramatuelle, dubbed Villa Kerouac, inspired the interior design of Celine’s boutiques worldwide.
Celine under Slimane has become known for shoulder bags, which persist, but the film and the press release trumpet the new Conti, a belt-topped tote that’s cradled in the crook of the elbow. According to Cosmopolitan magazine, carrying your handbag this way is common among A-listers and celebrities and telegraphs status and authority.
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