Hedi Slimane Makes His Case for Chanel

On Wednesday, Celine announced that Hedi Slimane was leaving after nearly seven years as creative director, and, after a respectful interval, it named his successor, Michael Rider. Both moves had been a topic of rumors for many months, so few fashion writers heading home that day from the Paris shows could have been surprised. Though a key piece of an intriguing puzzle — at least a puzzle that interests fashion people — remains to be solved: Where will Hedi go?

Many people would love to see him at Chanel, where there’s a vacancy. And to judge from a film that Celine released without warning on Sunday — about an hour before Alessandro Michele’s debut at Valentino — Slimane himself would like to go to Chanel. The film was a virtual calling card to the Chanel brass and the Wertheimer family, which owns the house, and also a clever way of reminding the public that Slimane knows how to market himself. He can get people talking, and without pushing provocative buttons.

Photo: Courtesy of Celine

In the video, titled A French Summer and set at a posh estate outside Paris, a small group of well-groomed girls is seen idling about in suits with miniskirts, Fair Isle pullovers, and party shifts, including one in white lace embellished all over with what might be camellias — Coco Chanel’s signature flower. There’s a striking outfit with a striped sailor top and a black sequined miniskirt. Again, Chanel famously posed in such a shirt, and one of her earliest designs was a creamy silk blouse based on a naval shirt. The connections didn’t end there. I thought at first the film was shot in an English country estate; Chanel had an eye for English tweeds and things and had close ties with English aristocrats, notably Winston Churchill and the Duke of Westminster.

Photo: Courtesy of Celine

Though there were obvious allusions in the styling and music to French female icons, above all, Françoise Hardy, there was a bit of Bridgerton here, too. Or so a dreamy girl might see it. But that’s not why Slimane’s video is relevant.

Photo: Courtesy of Celine

This was a remarkably weak Paris fashion season, and it ended with a heavy thud on Tuesday, with a mishmash from Miu Miu, an empty bag from Louis Vuitton, a holding pattern from Chanel, and a late-night trip to Disneyland Paris with Coperni, complete with fireworks and rides. I had the feeling, in fact, that it was a day of entertainment rather than fashion. Coperni’s clothes were cute, if a bit lost in the outdoor space, but wasn’t the point really to get images of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in the background?

Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Chanel’s collection, produced by the design studio, looked competent and youthful enough, but somebody had the idea of erecting a massive, old-fashioned white birdcage in the center of the Grand Palais, then inviting Riley Keough — Elvis’s granddaughter — to sing while she was perched and swinging on a swing in the middle of the cage. You cannot make up this shit.

Photo: Getty Images

The Chanel studio can be forgiven for doing a mild collection that included white bouclé suits with short-shorts and some simply elegant, filmy evening dresses — or, for that matter, offering some clunky pantsuits. They can’t do much else without new creative leadership. But Slimane’s little movie again illustrates why he’s so good at making a project with a historical brand. He gives you a clear point of view — something lacking this season at Miu Miu and Vuitton, despite talented designers and stylists. He focuses on the fashion, making it feel fresh and exciting, even when it isn’t new. And while the imagery and sound of the film is certainly important, they are not second to the clothes.

Photo: Getty Images

Executives in the industry have long maintained that Slimane wants too much control, especially of a brand’s overall image. I say: Give it to him. It’s way better than the muddle we tend to get elsewhere. Or seeing a creepy birdcage or a runway that looks like a Rubik’s Cube of Louis Vuitton trunks and in its tired opulence screams “Money!”

Photo: Getty Images

I couldn’t make heads or tails of Nicolas Ghesquière’s collection for Vuitton; other than that, he was trying to treat typically structured shapes like a jacket or plump sleeves with softness. Some underpinnings and separates looked more believable and cool, like striped, loosely scrunched cotton pants (more like leggings). But colors verged on sour and a lot of the boldly patterned and embroidered pieces came across as overworked, exercises in design without a clear vision.

Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Miuccia Prada usually brings the work of an artist to her Miu Miu shows, and this time it was Salt Looks Like Sugar, a multilayered piece by Goshka Macuga. It included the snaking, mechanical track of a newspaper printing press, a film entitled The Truthless Times, and hard copies of said paper, funded by an imaginary group called the Queer Labor Party. The 16-page broadsheet was stuffed with articles by writers and scholars, all linked to by QR codes. The installation was meant, in part, to convey information overload (often misinformation), though I didn’t feel Prada intended a link between the clothes and the art.

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

The show got underway with Sunday Rose Kidman-Urban (daughter of the actress and the singer) appearing in a white cotton shift with the back partially left open and black knee socks with low black pumps; I was completely charmed. More broken-looking summer shifts came out, along with rompers, polo shirts, and updated, classic college-girl windbreakers. Layered tank tops, with a sense of things peeling off, also looked fun.

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

But it soon became clear that the show was depending more on styling than interesting design — and on a social-media-worthy group of well-known models, including Cara Delevingne, Hilary Swank, and Willem Dafoe, who has walked in Prada’s men’s shows. Prada made a great case for individuality in her Milan women’s show two weeks ago; she and her co–creative director, Raf Simons, also disrupted their own way of putting out a collection, helped by a terrific cast of mostly new and unknown models. It ranks as one of the top shows of the spring collections.

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

But the Miu Miu show lacked a hard focus on new fashion. Mixing things up, however weirdly, isn’t actually a design strategy — not from edgy Miu Miu anyway. And I found it a bit odd that she and her team chose to close with a middle-age man, given the youthfulness of the brand. What’s Dad doing at their party?

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu