Slimane back in black as king of Paris fashion week

Superstar designer Hedi Slimane declared that
black is back Friday as he returned to the Paris catwalk after a two-year
absence to revolutionise Celine.
With his two biggest fans, Lady Gaga and Karl Lagerfeld, sitting next to
each other in the front row, Slimane drew a pitch-black portrait of his
hometown which he called “Paris The Night”.

He turned the Invalides — where Napoleon rests in his tomb — into a
giant
shadowy nightclub, sending out 68 of his 72 models in looks hewn from a new
deep midnight black he has been working on for the last nine months.
The “Sultan of skinny” stayed true to his very personal style, with
skinny
ties, slinky black suits and leather jackets for both men and women.

And the bulk of his models wore the black shades through which he
sees the
world. The message was clear.
The much-admired minimalist vibe of his British predecessor Phoebe Philo
at
Celine was history. This was Slimane’s vision.

While some of her fans cried foul on social media, the Wall Street
Journal’s critic Christina Binkley said Slimane has the Midas touch.
“When Slimane launched his thing at Saint Laurent, people hated on it,”
she
said.
“He just launched his thing at Celine — no less stark a brand reset —
and
there will be broad applause aside from a few careful critics.
“The difference — they know the revenues are about to gush.”
Yet there were subtle new twists on Slimane’s eternal motifs.

The man who is credited with inventing both the skinny and oversized
looks
that have dominated fashion over the last decade, lengthened his men’s
suits
and refined the mini-dresses he showed previously at Saint Laurent.
Flashes of white and silver cut through the dark with black and white
striped shirts and coats, studs and sparingly deployed sequins.

‘Hardcore Hedi’

Here and there a blazing two-tone leopard print raincoat or a gold or
red
lame dress lifted the uber cool gloom.
Critics hailed it as Slimane at his most uncompromising and hardcore.
“For those expecting the new Celine to look like Saint Laurent, you were
not wrong,” tweeted Tyler McCall, of the Fashionista website, referring to
the
label that Slimane walked away from two years ago.

Influential blogger Julie Zerbo added, “Hedi does Hedi (at Dior) does
Hedi
(at Saint Laurent) does Hedi (at Celine)….”
“Looks like black is the new black after all,” was the verdict of style
magazine Dazed.

Earlier the painfully private Slimane, 50, who confessed that has
been
plagued by tinnitus over the last year, said that would remain true to
himself.
“I stand firm for my principles. Why should I give up on what defines
me?
Becoming someone else on the pretext that what I did in the past has been
digested or imitated” was nonsense, he told the French daily Le Figaro.

He had also hinted that he was plotting a revolution at Celine, which
luxury goods giant LVMH had given him carte blanche to remake in his
image.

Journey into the night

That made him the most powerful designer in fashion after Lagerfeld
at
Chanel, who once famously shed 41 kilos (90 pounds) to squeeze into
Slimane’s
skinny jeans.
Slimane is adding a men’s line at Celine and has already dropped the
accent
from the brand’s logo.

“You don’t shake things up by avoiding making waves,” he said.
“When there is no debate it’s blind conformity.”
The show was much less androgynous than many had expected with Slimane
going for a far more feminine look for his women, many sporting veiled
fascinators.

“I love Paris by night. I grew up between the smoke of Le Palace and
the
white tiles of Les Bains-Douches (nightclubs),” the reclusive designer had
said before the show in a rare interview.
“It’s a pity that the city is eager to close down interesting places
like
those now and turn its back on Parisian nights. The lights still remain,
though. The magic of the neons in the cafes, the sparkling Parisian youth,”
said the designer, who has lived in Los Angeles since 2008.

Yet Slimane respected the neighbours with his journey to the end of
the
night by keeping the noise down. With military drummers beating out a
gentle
march throughout the show, there was no danger he would wake Napoleon under
his dome.(AFP)

Photos: Celine SS19, Catwalkpictures.com