A phalanx of Celine-branded helicopters and a motorcade of black Cadillacs; soaring shots of the undulating mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert; cowboys on braying horses; miles-long stretches of Californian open road – with his latest Celine menswear collection, presented in a short film released today, Hedi Slimane embraces the cinematic for a Hollywood epic in the designer’s singular style.
It begins with a jukebox – delivered by helicopter and replete with the same Celine branding – which when flipped on plays not one of Slimane’s usual rock and roll muses (recent collection films and shows from the designer have featured soundtracks from LCD Soundsystem, The Libertines and Alan Vega), but Hector Berlioz’s 1830-composed ‘Symphonie Fantastique’.
Celine Winter 2024 menswear: ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
Purportedly inspired by an obsessive, consuming relationship between the French musician and English actress Harriet Smithson, the dream-like epic is a feverish hallucination – one of opium poisoning, satanic witches and murder – which in 1969 was declared by Leonard Bernstein as ’the first psychedelic symphony’, created over a century before the birth of the acid-fuelled 1960s movement.
‘Now I’m sure that any of you who has ever had a crush on someone who didn't return your feeling will understand that passionate melody perfectly,’ said Bernstein, who recently was the subject of Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, starring Bradley Cooper in the titular role. ‘You can easily see how a lovesick musician could become obsessed by it. And if you understand that, you're ready to hear the symphony.’ Slimane discovered the work at age 11, and became instantly ’passionate’ about Berlioz, the house describes.
It provides a suitably dramatic backdrop for a collection that mines Slimane’s most enduring signatures: the narrow riff on the tuxedo, shrunken leather jackets and trousers, and flourishes of rock-and-roll showmanship, from pussy-bow neckties to fabrics that glimmer across their surface. An evolution comes in the play on proportion that runs through the tailoring: blazers are elongated or nipped in the body, or shortened in the lapel, recalling 1960s silhouettes (other jackets see the lapel done away with entirely, in what the house describes as a ‘frock coat’). Bernstein, meanwhile, seems to hover over the collection in roll-neck sweaters and billowing capes, which are instilled with the drama of the concert hall.
Elsewhere, a series of pieces from the house’s couture arm capture Slimane’s ongoing fascination with Parisian savoir-faire – whether crystal-adorned overcoats which refract the Mojave Desert’s light, or tailoring decorated with thousands of sequins. Each is shown on Slimane’s make-shift catwalks: a vast stretch of open road which runs through the desert like an airport runway.
California, and Los Angeles – the latter shown in glimpses of its downtown skyline at the end of the film – has long been something of a second home for Slimane, who lived in the city before relocating to the south of France at the beginning of his tenure at Celine. His fascination with the city’s heady blend of rock and roll subculture and nostalgic, Hollywood glamour has long pervaded his collections at Celine and at Saint Laurent and Dior Homme prior. In December of 2022, he hosted his Winter 2023 collection with a high-wattage show The Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, a historic movie palace-turned-music venue which has hosted the likes of Prince, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth.
Discover Celine’s Winter 2024 womenswear collection, which was presented this past March in a Hedi Slimane-directed film, here.
