The first thing that I thought when I saw this collection was: drape. The second, was silk and the third was the shoes, but they kind of tie into the first idea, really. What a collection for Phoebe Philo to showcase just how much of a master she is over proportion. Not everyone is going to like it, but Philo has really modernised that commes des garcons/junya avant garde take on outsized fashion, and rendered it completely wearable for today. I think some of it comes from her just having had a baby. The shapes are forgiving and the fabrics skim. The shoes are flat - strappy, pool sliders, occasionally embellished with some funky bling - and remind me a lot of that first The Row collection, when Mary-Kate and Ashley sent out a barrage of perfectly tailored trousers and frock coats with thick-strapped leather sandals. I don't mind them, and I like the tension between them and the clothes. It's like Philo has captured that moment when a woman gets through the front door, kicks off her heels and slides into some slippers, wandering into the kitchen for a cup of tea still in her evening clothes.
The thing is that not everyone gets Phoebe Philo. Everyone gets Celine, that is, they get the bags and the jewellery and the sunglasses and the shoes. But the clothes? The clothes with those thousand-dollar price tags and their slouchy fit and their outsized gambit? Not so much. They'd rather have a luggage bag and call it a day. But there is SO much more to Celine than accessories. In fact, as much as I love the bags (and I live for the bags), I would give them all up in a heartbeat for a wardrobe of Phoebe Philo Celine clothes. And this collection is no exception. It's so in-tune with exactly how I want to dress when I'm grown up and fabulous, it's so in-tune with that MK&A way of wearing big things on little people and turning it into a business at The Row, and it's always consistently outside of a fashion mold, even when it's setting that mold, that you have to admire it. There are so many things that Philo has done in this collection that show the growth at Celine since the start. This is the collection with the least amount of leather in it and even the least amount of cotton, linen and canvas. The focus is on that beautiful, drapey silk, molten liquid falling across the body in one fluid line. This collection has hardly any runway bags, just a few scrunchy leather clutches - enlarged versions of her famous tri pochette - like some sort of glamourised paper bag. This collection takes what is essentially a winter colour palette and makes it summer, first through those sandals, then through the silk, and lastly through shapes of such ease and breeze that you wouldn't be mad to wear their them poolside at cabo. In fact, the whole crux of Philo's design method is how she takes staid ideas and renders them so modern they are quite shocking. This collection is, actually, very sporty, probably the sportiest she has ever done. It's got mesh vents and side splits and cropped sweaters and sleeveless cuts. But it's sporty like you've never seen before, which of course is the point.
And, unsurprisingly, I love it. I love it because, from a personal point of view, Celine has become one of the few brands - alongside The Row and occasionally Stella McCartney - that actually present clothes that adhere to my own standard of dress. I live for that oversized cut, that slouchy swagger, that silhouette of a girl in a drapey top with her hands shoved in the pockets of her silky track pants. I love it because every one of those lithe, long-limbed models had a face that was scrubbed free of makeup. I know they probably weren't scrubbed free, and that someone backstage was spending hours liberally applying radiance cream, but god Julia Nobis looked tired, which I kind of like. If, as one critic once posed, every Celine girl is actually crafted in the image of Philo herself (think Daria in last season's campaign!), then why not give the girls a centre part and bags under their eyes? And we end up back at the fact that Philo has just given birth... People often muse that the problem with male designers is that they never understand the female form. They either design for a sexual ideal, a motherly ideal, or a friendly ideal. In many ways this is true. I think that a key strength of a female designer, which Philo has proved in her collection, is not only to understand the female form but the female mind. You've just given birth, what would be the ultimate thing to wear? Some silken lounge pants and a drapey sweater. People may not like this collection, they may not even understand it, but I'll put some money down right now that this is going to sell like mad.
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