Located in a grand 19th-century Haussmann building, with interiors hewn from Grand Antique marble, Celine’s Rue Saint-Honoré store is a temple to Parisian elegance and luxury, dedicated to the feats of savoir-faire that define the house under current creative director Hedi Slimane.
Designed by Slimane, the store is punctuated with geometric mirrored walls and surfaces, a nod to France’s mouvement moderne. The ground floor is dedicated to leather goods, fine jewellery and women’s accessories, while a semi-spiral staircase, in golden brass, ascends to a salon-style mezzanine displaying the house’s ‘Haute Maroquinerie’ bags (the pinnacle of Celine’s accessories offering, each is created by hand by a single artisan). Next door, the house’s apothecary-style haute parfumerie, which opened in 2019, is now interconnected, providing a dedicated home for Slimane’s fragrance offering. ‘Pronounced classicism and dissonant sophistication,’ says the brand of the olfactory project, which, like the store, is designed to capture ‘the essence of Paris’.
Celine Saint Honoré: capturing the essence of Paris
Also populating the 137 sq m space is an array of contemporary artworks. Among them are a carved totem by New York-based Ian L C Swordy, a series of wooden sculptures by Vilnius-based Augustas Serapinas, and a specially commissioned mobile, Skylight Gems (2022), by US sculptor Virginia Overton. Paintings by Vivian Suter and Will Boone also feature, while an eclectic array of furniture and objets are selected for their ‘sculptural typology’. Each element is chosen or designed by Slimane, a continuity of the singular vision he brings to his collections.
It provides an apt setting to capture Slimane’s recent couture offering, shown as part of the house’s A/W 2023 show at The Wiltern theatre in LA last December. An honorary resident of the Californian city (Slimane lived in LA for several years before moving back to France, where he now resides close to Saint-Tropez), the collection itself melded tropes of Hollywood glamour with the designer’s eye for subculture and rebellion. First opened as a vaudeville theatre in 1931, The Wiltern’s opulent art deco interior has since become one of the city’s cult music venues, hosting the likes of Nina Simone, Prince, Patti Smith and The Rolling Stones (on the evening of the show, the after-party’s live soundtrack came courtesy of Iggy Pop, The Strokes, Interpol and The Kills).
Mixed among the ready-to-wear – for A/W 2023, Slimane estimated it made up ‘around 20 per cent of the collection’ – the couture pieces spanned everything from tailoring to evening wear, often featuring extraordinary feats of embroidery and craft. A shimmering babydoll dress was embroidered with more than 90,000 crystals and paillettes (in Slimane’s typically insouciant style, it was worn with a slouchy bag and dark sunglasses), while a series of liquefied metallic gowns at the end of the show were stitched, entirely by hand, with thousands of rhinestones, sequins and beads.
This closing milieu was backdropped by an enormous version of the house’s Triomphe monogram – a symbol revitalised during Slimane’s tenure and inspired by the architecture of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe – here illuminated, Hollywood-style, in lights.
Celine, 384 Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris 1e, celine.com
Model: Felixia Ekila Loleka at Ford Models. Casting: Spela Kasal. Hair: Michal Bielecki. Make-up: Tiziana Raimondo at Home Agency. Photography assistant: Sebastien Issartelle. Producer: Anya Hassett
A version of this article appears in the September 2023 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, on sale now available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
