Hedi Slimane's electro-rock for Celine's FW23 collection The collection was held at the location of the legendary Le Palace club.
For his Celine FW23 collection presented in Paris last Friday, Hedi Slimane chose an exceptional setting: the legendary Parisian club Le Palace. Founded in the 16th century as a theater and ballroom, evolving over the centuries into a nightclub and then a cinema but later falling into disrepair, it was reopened in 1978 by the great impresario Fabrice Emaer as the French answer to Studio 54. Since then Le Palace has been a monument to Montmartre nightlife, the most frequented venue by all the legends of 1970s and 1980s Paris. Such a place could only attract Slimane, who has been frequenting it since he was 16 and, in 2018, used it as the venue for his birthday party. Friday's fashion show was also a very Slimanean affair: in fact, the huge space was filled with the procession of French divas, actors, and indie rock icons such as Catherine Deneuve, Jane Birkin, Jack White, Earl Cave, Jack Dylan, Yves Tumor, and The Libertines - signing the soundtrack instead were Suicide, stars of 1970s proto-punk who accompanied a collection that is perhaps among Slimane's most successful at Celine.
By organizing his show outside the fashion week calendar (as well as that of the women's collection organized last November at The Wiltern, another iconic nightclub but in Los Angeles) Hedi Slimane seems to want to reaffirm his independence not only from the rest of the industry but also from the very concept of the season and the implicit notion that it is necessary to renew even a formula that works continually. The answer then, in the absence of huge media events, is to create a community of kindred spirits, a kind of enlarged big rock band, all united by the same imagery that concedes little to the comings and goings of trends and at the same time is capable of expanding from the rock of leather suits to the classicism of coats and tailoring to the glamour of red carpet gowns seen on virtually every red carpet in the past few years and especially at Cannes.
