Celine Men’s Winter 2024 is a study on Hedi Slimane’s practices of dramaturgy: where past, present and future converge to chart the growth of Celine’s menswear arm, under his direction.
Symphonie Fantastique, the theme that permeates Celine Men’s Winter 2024 wholly, references French composer Hector Berlioz’s same-named score that touches all the feelings of wistfulness related to the affection of a crush. Filmed across a myriad of locales, the Mojave Desert and Los Angeles, Winter 2024 has whisked the French maison far from its homegrounds, deep in the wilderness — replicating that very notion of pining, longing and isolation. But it is in those barren, foreign lands where Hedi Slimane has guided Celine Men back to where it is most comfortable: Winter 24 marks the house’s full-fledged return to the cut-and-dry traditions of tailoring.
It is in Hector Berlioz’s musical evocation of pining, that one can understand Slimane’s bittersweet collection of precisely-cut formalwear. Invoking all-too-familiar overtures of nostalgia, the narrative of Winter 2024 yields to the scores that accompany the models down the desert roads; and Slimane reflects on his six-year tenure thus far — amid rife rumours of his soon departure from the house. There is a coming-of-age element that unfolds in the 14-minute film. Straight-laced, unfettered classics gradually bloom into bedazzled, diamante-draped coats and trousers. It is a Künstlerroman retelling of the Celine Men story; of an artist’s trajectory and life story. In this case, Hedi Slimane — the producer, playwright, art director and more — is not made out to be the protagonist, but a driving force in the house’s history. Slimane has birthed this new chapter for the house — and the house has now come to its own.
Just as the mountainous terrains are fluid with their grooves and the desert’s vast excess holds endless potential, so narrates the collection of the maison. Decisive and direct, Slimane’s production sees familiar Celine characters taking the grand stage against the Sierra Nevada mountain range backdrop. Classic double-breasted jackets, frock coats and crisp leather overshirts are the costumes for these gentlemen — alongside a shroud of ambiguity. They could be heroes, villains, rockstars, angst-fuelled youth or simply well-dressed everyday-goers, each one a character that has been cast for prior house collections. But in ambiguity, is space for the (relatively young) wing of the house to explore: the garments are merely a dimension, a facet to these characters; whereas elsewhere, they would have been made to take centre stage.
Regardless, Slimane’s sartorial-backed direction serves to assuage its base of loyalists. If this is Slimane’s final bow, there can at least be hope for an encore to exist within all the alternate universes he has consistently built narratives for. So if his successor chooses to seek out the desert, the Californian Teen Cowboy (the house’s term for Slimane’s exploration of the Wild West) pipeline may persist. And the same goes for the others: the renegades of his Cosmic Teen, the anarchists of his Dysfunctional Daydream, and the history-buffs of his Teen Knight Poem.
Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our May 2024 issue.