Oh, it’s Céline! Phoebe Philo’s methods of slinking in under the publicity radar are becoming yet more exquisitely practiced with every season. Put it this way: If closing off backstage interviews after her Spring show (the latest) was one blow to quote-seeking news-gatherers, then choosing to release Céline Resort pictures on the day of the U.S. presidential election takes evasion to another level. It begs a question: How much does Phoebe Philo want these pictures seen? Or more to the point, is she silently maneuvering against her clothes being over-seen and over-shared before her customers have a chance to stumble upon them in a Céline store for themselves?
That’s a really interesting, moot point. At an intellectual, luxury level such as Céline’s, the mystique of the personal choice, the individual discovery, is the pleasure. A self-determining Céline customer wouldn’t need the pre-endorsement of anyone else before she’d wade into trying on a pair of pleat-fronted, narrow-ankled pants or jackets with vast shoulders tapering into super-nipped waists. Nor does she need anything other than the evidence of her own eyes to know that an oversize beige trenchcoat is precisely the right thing to own now.
Truth be told, Resort and pre-collections are the places Philo has always secreted away her best—meaning most durably fashion-proof—clothes. This time, there are some quite radical proportions going on.
What catches the eye most in the new lineup is Philo’s swaggeringly womanly tailoring, which aligns with what Hillier Bartley, Vetements, and Jacquemus are doing. On a rail—which is how these garments were viewed by the press, back in July—it’s impossible to tell how these proportions settle on a body. That’s a matter between a woman, a changing room, and her own reflection, presumably the only place of judgment Philo counts as real.
