Céline. Spring 2019 – Paris Fashion Week

(Images from vogue.com and wwd.com and the public domain. All rights. Used in promotion of the designer.)

Hedi Slimane debut show as creative director for Céline, with the departure of Phoebe Philo, was to ensure that the brand returns its self back to the duel sex distinction of clean and precise aesthetics of  the iconic company's prior catalogue of men's and women's fashion.  However, this is not a backlash.  Rather, a marketing and sales pitch - and probably with degrees of urgency.  With a misfire of the last eight years of high end fashion misreading market trends, which was sourced through digital networks. Near fatal errors and lazy research.  There has been no breakdown of culture perspectives within a society as far as the noise from the bloated Universities and connected media outlets.  Someone would be making a lot of ad revenue within the "sell" of social sensibilities, but the majority (young) transfixed on fears are poor.  They cannot afford 'high end' unisex clothing, it was a puerile assumption that larger fashion icons where tapping into, what they thought, were future markets. So, as seen with Anthony Vaccarello and Yves Saint Laurent, the definition of male and female fashion in its separate appeal is swinging back in full force, even with Yohji Yamamoto with his latest collection slightly concerned that the feminine styles are been over driven with masculine encroachment (once again the fallacy of selling unisex styles).   As mentioned, the reasons are less sinister as sales could be down across the board, which would also indicate a more pressing concern for these large fashion houses - a global economic downturn could be on the way.  And we will let the irritating noise of the left and right media tedium's blame each other before the crash.  In the meantime, let's talk about the fashion.

Late 1970s and early 1980s sex appeal, hedonistic, Studio 54 power styles.  With one reviewer saying that Slimane did not set a heroin chic look (no strung out models), true, but what is portrayed with this collection are cocktails and cocaine.  Therefor shock value still counts in the sell, as Slimane pushes forward with the mini-skirts way above the knees, blazers (spillover trend from 2017), leather coats, cropped and long.  Lace (so far Anthony Vaccarello is mastering this with YSL), sheer and alluring looks which may fail to hold the attention that it desires  As it's been done before and feels cheapened.  Which, may indicate that the more established fashion brands could be trying to keep up with the 'copies' of the fast fashion industries who could be ramping up production into an overkill.  

Noted is the men's collection intermixed with the female pieces.  In a reverse aspect to the female collection without emulating it.  

The fashion industry is not looking too healthy at the moment.