Oversize jackets, men’s leggings and a lot of gold chains: Michael Rider’s debut subverted the wardrobe status quo.
The New New Celine arrived on the runway during a rainy day in Paris. The heat dome over Europe finally had broken, and water was dripping through a giant red, white and blue Celine scarf that had been strung over the courtyard of the brand’s headquarters, landing delicately on the heads of the guests seated below.
Michael Rider was making his designer debut, and he presumably wanted to invite everyone into the brand’s home, both as a welcome and a reset. It had been eight months since the previous creative director, Hedi Slimane, departed the job and five years since Celine was part of any official fashion week at all.
What emerged, however, was more like a synthesis: a dialectic in wardrobe form between the subversive, female-centric luxury of Old Celine made famous by Phoebe Philo and the didactic desiccation-meets-the-bourgeoisie of New Celine as defined by Mr. Slimane; between the lunching chic of Original Celine established in 1945 by its founder, Céline Vipiana, and the preppiness of Mr. Rider’s recent stint as women’s design director of Ralph Lauren. All of it sent through the looking glass only to re-emerge in twisted form on the other side.
It was familiar but in a messed up way. At least in Mr. Rider’s hands, the effect was compellingly (rather than alarmingly) unsettling.
Blazers were oversize, with the waist pulled slightly off its axis, shoulders sloping out — not to push through a glass ceiling but to poke it, and maybe add a tickle or two. Pants were legging or long-john tight, but also pleated at the waist and curvy at the thigh, paired with equally curvy cropped leather jackets and tucked into supple leather boxing boots. (Mr. Rider is one of those designers seemingly committed to the concept of men in leggings, which may be a sly commentary on Mr. Slimane’s famously skinny silhouette, but it is never really a good idea.)
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