Michael Rider got into his stride with his third outing at Celine in a way that perked up the enthusiasm of the crowd to no end. “Building out a life in clothes” is one way he put it. “We’re always scared when it looks too much like a fashion show,” he added. Packed with the expensive-looking yet aspirationally relatable, his collection created the satisfying impression for both women and men that you might just step out on the street and join in the life of the sunny Paris afternoon dressed in anything off that runway.
Put-together, but not too much. In his previous two seasons, he’d nailed the preppy look: lots of silk scarves, rugby shirts, chinos, and rep ties. It sparked a trend, but not one he wanted to get trapped in. Now he was looking at cutting a succinct line, tailored closer to the body: coats and suits with neat shoulders, fitted to the torso and worn with cropped kick-flares; adaptations of French peacoats; a panoply of narrow longline overcoats for men.
Shifting the dial of fashion takes a lot of insight into the zeitgeist. Fresh in the role of creative director, Rider has seen that the oversized trend that has held sway for the last decade is due to be booted out. “I do think Celine is a place you go to find beautifully cut clothing; a slimmer silhouette,” he said. The difference is in how it’s put together. “Classics is one thing, but we like bite,” he said. “A jacket’s a jacket, but it’s figuring out the character. I don’t like the idea of something that covers up what people are going through.”
That balance between the perfectly luxurious and the slightly eccentric manifested in the headspace—the odd crown of feathers sprouting in boys’ hair, couture-ish satin mufflers climbing up over faces (hints, he said, of our “messy inner lives”). How did he arrive at that? “Intuition” he said with a shrug. Designing and styling for him and his team is “like a jam session. Putting the collection together, we’re always riffing on each other. One note after another.”
That vibe was amplified—literally—in the music that played an uplifting role in giving context to what was going on. Installations of old-school wood amplifiers blasted Prince and uptempo gospel (the whole playlist is now on Spotify). It clued you into the boys-in-the-band look of skinny hoicked-up trousers and cropped leather double-breasted jackets that was also going on. Just a hint. Nothing too prescriptive or literal. That’s Rider’s knack. He lets it seem as if it’s up to us to put all of this together in our own way, while deftly providing all the desirable accompaniments to go with it.
