Twenty years of Hedi Slimane with Celine's SS23 show Designer returns to Palais de Tokyo 20 years after his first groundbreaking Dior Homme show

Yesterday at the Palais de Tokyo was Celine's 15th show in the Hedi Slimane era. It was a return to physical shows for the brand, which had relied on digital fashion shows for the past few years, marking a series of milestones for the designer's career and for his brand. Indeed, Slimane's fans will have recognized the typical structure of the runway of the show, with the wall of lights behind the models and the flash that precedes the start of the show, but also the fact that the very Palais de Tokyo location was the same one where, 20 years ago, Slimane himself had debuted with his mythological first collection for Dior Homme in 2002. Beyond the various anniversaries, the closing night of Paris Fashion Week was crowned by the presence of Lisa from Blackpink and Kim Tae-hyung, absolute stars of K-Pop who drew a huge, adoring crowd in front of the Palais de Tokyo who, as WWD's Miles Socha reports, were greeted from the balcony by the two singers as if they were at a royal parade. Along with Louis Vuitton's show, Celine's was perhaps the only one in Paris to attract such a siege of crowds - so much so that it felt like a throwback to those monumental shows of yesteryear for which crowds thronged outside the gates. That's the power of the rockstar attitude of Slimane, who entrusted this year's soundtrack to the band Gustaf defined by the brand's «the strongest emerging New York band, they’ve caught the attention of luminaries like Beck and Matt Shultz of Cage the Elephant - who had the band open for him at a secret loft party».

Over time Hedi has had to adapt to the times, clearly, and she has also done so with some ease. And if, over time, Pete Doherty has been replaced by K-Pop stars, if his tobacco hipsters have become tiktokers covered in glittering studs, and if his entire world of Parisian references, Londoners, and Losangelines had to open up to a new generation of digital consumers now that his shows are back in real life Hedi has reaffirmed his role as heir to the great tradition of French designers capable of bringing an entire universe of different references, imagery, and disciplines into his own myth, condensing them into a single aesthetic. Fashion, in short, remains fashion-regardless of whether you look at it from an early 2000s magazine or an Instagram screen.