‘“Light one for me, will you?”
It was the first time in my life that anyone had asked this of me, and as I took the cigarette from my lips and put it in hers, I caught a thin bat’s squeak of sexuality, inaudible to any but me.'
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
On second viewing, and it is only the second of many, when it comes to my favourites I have to view them many, many times, there is something extra about Celine that I don't think I mentioned fully the first time. I will say this and then I promise, to shut the hell up about Phoebe Philo, you're all sick of me waxing lyrical about her any chance I get. Ok. Looking at the images again, especially the detail shots, I was struck by what I can only term a 'thin, bat's squeak of sexuality', to borrow Evelyn Waugh's wonderfully evocative phrase. Here was a collection that from the front on, in the clinical, frenetic environment of the runway (and its corresponding online images) seemed so buttoned up. Philo's genius is in the simple, understated, hidden sexuality of her clothes. In her first season it was those leather tee shirts that clung to the form as if the models had just emerged, dripping, from a sapphire-Mediterranean. This season it is the clever use of zips, backless garments and cut. Philo often covers up something - legs/arms - but exposes something elses. It is a playful, exciting game of hide and seek that on the right woman, in the right situation, with the right attitude, would be incredibly alluring.
But it's an even better, more powerful kind of allure because it matches up with practicality. These clothes are not ballgowns (or rather, should i say, little slips of a party dress). These are actual clothes - tops, jumpsuits, pants, skirts, dresses - that can just as easily be worn at the office, doing the school run, at the breakfast table as they can in the nightclub, in the hotel room. Whereas once sexuality was easily identifiable - short hemlines, a lot of cleavage and a flash of lace somewhere - Philo muddies the waters a bit. What is sexy? Is it a dangerously, almost obscenely low v-neck? Is it a zipper on a jumpsuit that has potential to go down, down, down? Is it a woman in loose, billowing palazzo pants, confident in herself? What is the difference between sex and sexy? Can we find it in clothes? Philo said in interviews that the more "austere" mood of the collection reflects how the woman feels that she doesn't need to show skin to get attention. Well, yes, but it must be said that when she does show some skin, it's a bloody riot. It may be all about suggestion, but sometimes the hint of something can be just as, if not more powerful, than the actuality. Two strategically placed tabs on a white shirt's bodice. A crazily cut sideseam that veers towards indecency, a couple of measly strings of wool holding together an entire top at the back.
In this day and age it is too easy to think that sexy only comes in a Herve Leger dress. Anyone who can't find sexy at Celine is looking in all the wrong places, and for all the wrong reasons. It's there, but this bat's squeak of sexuality, inaudible to anyone but the wearer, is enough to drive anyone - any man - mad.
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