Will Hedi Slimane singlehandedly bring back bushy bangs and heavy eyeliner?
He very well might, along with pleated boarding school skirts, twinsets, luncheon suits and babydoll dresses — all elements of his terrific spring 2025 fashion film for Celine, broadcast only 30 minutes before Sunday’s Akris show.
Even viewed on a phone screen while slumped on a bench waiting, Slimane’s ode to late French singers and fashion icons Juliette Gréco and Françoise Hardy, who died over the summer, cast a formidable spell that will surely sell oodles of black jersey hairbands, ladylike top-handle handbags, and a new fragrance, Un Été Français, which made a brief cameo amidst dreamy scenes of swaying flowers. (The spring collection carries the same name, and marks the first time in ages that Slimane unveiled a collection during, not after, Paris Fashion Week.)
The designer took his cameras to the grand, neoclassical Château de Compiègne, not far from Paris, and trained his lens on models striding through its majestic corridor of columns, or wandering formal gardens dotted with sheep.
His tony, streamlined take on prim ’60s chic was compelling, youthful, leggy and polished to a high gloss. Everything — the sparkly tweed skirt suits, the shapely tuxedos, the ruffled blouses, and the inventive LBDs — looked highly desirable and wearable, perfectly styled with silk scarves knotted at the neck, kitten-heel sling backs and long gold necklaces.
The body language of one model posing on the grand staircase, hands on hip in her sparkly cardigan and multiple chains and bracelets, brought to mind Gabrielle Chanel. It surely wasn’t a coincidental likeness, knowing what an exacting, formidable image maker Slimane has become.
He has built Celine into a complete universe, adding menswear, fragrances, stationery, headphones, pet accessories — and soon eyeliner from Celine Beauté, the first cosmetics line in the house’s history.
Slimane said he designed the spring collection last May after re-reading Françoise Sagan’s “La Chamade” and listening to The Velvet Underground and Nico, who crooned “Femme Fatale” throughout the new 10-minute film.
Inspiration for the babydoll dresses, meanwhile, stems from 2003, when Slimane was documenting the youth scene in Paris and London, where “uptown indie Lolitas” adopted the short frocks to attend concerts, according to Celine’s press notes.
The perfume was conceived while Slimane was listening to Nico, Hardy and Jane Birkin at his beach house in Ramatuelle, France. Its notes of bergamot, petitgrain, neroli, jasmine and vanilla express nostalgia for his last six summers, but “also to teenage memories of the beaches of the Côte d’Azur with first loves, gold and sunburnt skin beneath a veil of ambered cream.”
As far as fashion storytellers go, Slimane is about as concise and vivid as it gets.
For more Paris spring 2025 reviews, click here.