Armistice Time: Why Edie Slimane is worthy of a post at Céline
THE GRAVEL PLATE, AND ON IT - THE BRANDED LOGO, INSULATED IN GOLD Céline. Among the inventive fashion-memes dedicated to the appointment of Edie Sliman by the new artistic director of the French fashion house, this is the most eloquent description of the rest of the feelings of Phoebe Faylo's fans. The Englishwoman has worked in Céline for a decade and has turned not the most expressive French brand into a bastion of feminist fashion; The pre-fall collection 2018, which will be presented in March, will be the last one released under her leadership. After that, File will go to free swimming, but nothing is known about the future plans of the designer. Sliman, who takes over the new position literally in a week, will be silent about February 1: he will become the first Frenchman and the third - after Michael Cors and Roberto Menichetti - a man in this post.
The Céline website already features a black and white portrait of Edie, and the press is replete with reports that Bernard Arnaud, head of the LVMH concern, which owns the brand, has given him unprecedented powers: men, couture and perfume lines will be launched by Slimane. He was given complete control over most of the divisions, including advertising and marketing and the department of merchandising. At the same time, Edie plans to work "on a remote" from Los Angeles, which has long been considered the second home, despite the fact that Céline headquarters are located in Paris and London. We will be able to get a more or less complete idea of what such an unexpected personnel decision will turn out for the brand in September: it was then that the first “mixed” show will take place as part of Fashion Week in Paris, where the women's and men's collections will be presented at the same time.
The story repeats: as in 2012, when the designer was appointed creative designer Yves Saint Laurent, Slimane shamelessly breaks through the doors of a respected fashion house. The reaction of the professional community and fans not so much of the brand itself, as creativity and personality of Failo, is predictable: the first are intrigued and discouraged, the second is mourning.
Phoebe has repeatedly proven her clear position in relation to contemporaries not with empty slogans on T-shirts, but in a very concrete matter.
“Considering how disrespectful Slimane dispensed with the legacy of Yves Saint Laurent, I never stop wondering: how justified is this full-time castling? What does Céline expect from the designer, whose creative path is lined with kilometers of microscopic skirts of leather and narrow suede pants that can turn the most slender legs in the likeness of sausages, tied with food cord? " - asks the fashionable media magnate Leandra Medin in a program note she published after the news about the new status of Sliman. This text exhaustively makes it clear what moods prevail in the camp of "file-filers", as Phoebe Faylo, an admirer of creative work, calls themselves.
It is really difficult to overestimate the value of File's professional heritage. For a long time, fashion communicated with women exclusively through orders; thanks to the unique talent of the former head of Céline, she has become an ally, has become a tool with which you can intelligibly explain to the world what you are. Unlike many designers who cover feminist banners with holes in their own craftsmanship, they repeatedly proved their clear position in relation to contemporaries Phoebe, not with empty slogans on T-shirts, but with a very specific case. Surprisingly, uncompromisingly, the luxury brand, under its authority, has ceased to be associated with snobbery and elitism - having offered instead an image of a free and independent woman. So, all assorted brands from COS to Ellery, promoting a "new female fashion", came out of Filelo's overcoat. The overcoats are hypersize sized.
Given all this, Edie Sliman’s choice for the role of Failo’s successor really raises many questions. At first glance, she and Phoebe are full of antipodes: Slimane sings about the youth and tumult of hormones, the main lyrical heroines of Failo are mature women of interesting fate, such as writer Joan Didion and models and activists Daria Verbova. He became famous for his exaggeratedly narrow silhouettes in the male Dior of the early 2000s, her own distinction was always exaggerated free forms. The clothes Slimane sews look best in the decorations of an unbridled party or a mad rock concert, and Failo's things, on the contrary, are made for those who know Zen and achieve harmony.
However, the main complaint of the Céline fandom to Slimane is that Edie is a man. The man who stood at the helm of a strictly female brand created by a woman for women. “This is how all of Phoebe’s accomplishments were taken and devalued by putting Céline in the hands of a male designer. Now, another man will dictate to us, women, how to dress,” something like these intonations can be heard in the material of the fashionable Racked portal.
If you try to look at the situation from a different angle, it turns out that Edie and Phoebe’s approaches are not too far from each other. For all the difference in techniques, both designers are engaged in creative struggle for similar goals.
Of course, it’s a thankless task to make accurate predictions about what Céline of Edie Sliman’s era will look like: unpredictable results, suspense, intrigue - LVMH management, announcing the brand’s new cooperation with the new designer, clearly expects to keep the trendy community on their toes. It’s hard to say what exactly Edi’s employers want: the fact that he can continue the work started by Faylo, or simply rely on a solid profit - both male Dior and Saint Laurent when he was a creative director made huge money. One thing is clear: if you try to look at the situation from a different angle, it turns out that Edie and Phoebe’s approaches are not so far apart. For all the difference in methods, both designers are engaged in a creative struggle for the same goals: freedom, equality, mutual respect, and your perfect wardrobe.
In a lengthy interview that Sliman gave a year before leaving YSL, he explains his obsession with leanness. The choice of slender models as an object of inspiration is due to severe childhood injuries: as a teenager, outwardly similar to his current muses, Edie was subjected to severe persecution by his peers. The designer argues that diversity should be honest, so on the podium it is important to represent the entire spectrum of the human physique. Against the rigid conventional canons of beauty, Phoebe speaks in company with Joan Didion - only in opposition to Slimane she looks to her own future, and not to the past.
While Failo allowed the girls to show their more severe, masculine side and legitimized their right to wear sneakers instead of heels, Slimane, having started a revolution in men's Dior, in turn, gave men a blank check for the manifestation of a feminine side. The right to boa, let down eyes, oblipon pants and already familiar shoes on Cuban heels are largely due to Sliman.
With all this, the most important problem with choosing Edie to the place of a creative director is not at all in his gender or obsession with a certain aesthetics. The thing is that when it comes directly to design skills and talents, it becomes obvious that Fileo and Slimane are still at the opposite professional poles. If Phoebe is one of the last true designers, the heir to the great style of fashion designers of the middle of the last century, then Slimane is a bright representative (and in general its founder) of the school of stylists. Their work is primarily characterized by the ability to create a concept, an idea of images, to invent not the design of collections, but their content and myth. This is how Sliman’s other colleagues work today: Alessandro Michele in Gucci, Demna Gvasalia in Balenciaga and Vetements, Virgil Abdo in Off-White, Gosha Rubchinsky as part of the same-name brand and many others.
But let's give Edie a chance. At the beginning of the 2000s, so many girls dreamed of becoming the owners of the very men's suits that Slimane sewed for Dior. A decade later, Kanye West performed at the Coachella festival in a Céline blouse from the spring-summer 2011 collection. It seems that now is the time to unite both men and women under the emblem of the feminist brand itself and to start negotiations on cooperation.
Photo:Saint Laurent Paris, Celine
