of Celine had to offer.
It offered nothing.
Though Slimane unleashed
a whopping 96 looks for his
inaugural collection, not one
showed
visible
recognition
of the house’s past. Rather
than acknowledge any aspect
of Celine’s rich, matriarchal
heritage, Slimane used the
platform it gave him to pay
homage
to
himself.
Look
number
one,
a
shoulder-
bearing, polka dot shift with
a massive bow motif, was
reminiscent
of
the
heart-
shaped cape he designed in
2016. Sharp-shouldered suit
jackets and tapered slacks
reproduced
Saint
Laurent’s
favored menswear silhouette.
Skirts
were
short.
Boots
were made of black leather,
accented
with
buckles
and
zippers.
Sequins
and
sunglasses
abound.
Models
stomped through the venue
to a throbbing techno beat,
about as enthused as a crew of
high school stoners forced to
attend a pep rally. Objectively,
everything
looked
fine,
but this was not the Celine
anybody knew or loved. It was
simply Slimane, doing as he
has always done.
Why was Hedi being Hedi
suddenly
offensive
in
this
context?
For
starters,
he
entered a 73-year-old company
with no regard for the legacy
left by his predecessors, opting
instead to mansplain his way
through
the
Celine
name,
both literally by removing
the
accent,
posthumously
stripping
founder
Céline
Vipiana of her power, and
figuratively through his stale
designs. Slimane doesn’t care
what the 2018 Celine woman
wants, or that what was cool
in his Saint Laurent days can
be
interpreted
completely
differently
in
the
present
political climate. Philo’s Celine
was a tribute to the wants
and needs of a customer she
deeply understood. Here was
an
overzealous,
privileged
man throwing that all by the
wayside, shamelessly using his
resources and clout to push
forward a problematic agenda.
Sounds an awful lot like
a
certain
Supreme
Court
nominee.
It’s a shame that an attempt
to dismantle Philo’s legacy
happened
in
tandem
with
the
Kavanaugh
hearings,
but the parallels were clear
as day. Tweet after tweet,
thinkpiece after thinkpiece,
has considered the collection
within a feminist framework.
Leandra Medine, founder of
the fashion blog Man Repeller,
titled her melancholic review
“Why
It
Matters
When
Designers Ignore What Women
Want.”
Fashion
journalist
Booth Moore went so far as
to brand Slimane “the Donald
Trump of fashion” in a recent
article for The Hollywood
Reporter.
“To some people for whom
buying a $4000 coat designed
by a woman was somehow
perceived to be a feminist act,
the storyline may be familiar:
rob a female of a job she seemed
perfect for, and replace her
with a man who burns down
the
house,”
Moore
wrote.
“You almost have to wonder if
LVMH, seeing the contentious
landscape before them, knew
this.”
Clearly, Dr. Ford’s testimony
deserved
more
attention
than
Paris
Fashion
Week,
but
consider
this:
As
we
watched a posse of archaic
senators dismiss a woman’s
recounting
of
her
assault,
a
Parisian
clothier
once
viewed as the pinnacle of
female
empowerment
was
turned
into
a
parade
of
white-washed models clad in
slinky
numbers
remarkable
only for their exposure of
thighs. Fashion is political.
Nothing is coincidence. Both
the
Kavanaugh
hearings
and
Slimane’s
tone-deaf
Celine debut are signs of the
times. We are living in the
age of pervasive disregard
for
women’s
experiences,
whether they come in the form
of artistic achievements or
searing trauma.
“Ultimately, the clothes at
Celine are a continuation of
what Slimane was doing at
Saint Laurent — a style that
proved to be lucrative for the
house,” wrote Robin Givhan in
her review for The Washington
Post. “During his tenure there,
Slimane
generated
double-
digit,
year-to-year
growth.
But nearly two years have
passed since Slimane left Saint
Laurent. In that short time, the
fashion industry has changed
and so has the broader culture.”
Hedi
Slimane
needs
to
wake up and smell the post-
apocalyptic roses. Like many
of
our
current
decision-
makers in American politics,
he has soiled a sense of female
liberation that generations of
women have worked tirelessly
to build up.
The
worst
part?
Like
Kavanaugh, Slimane is either
lying or has no recollection of
the harm he’s done.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 — 5A
I am in a group chat with two
of my fellow fashion enthusiast
friends.
Despite
harboring
interest in what’s consistently
touted as a shallow industry,
each of us is an avid believer in
the intersection of the personal
and the political. We’re also all
staunch Democrats.
When Dr. Christine Blasey
Ford
took
the
stand
last
Thursday to testify against
Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme
Court
nominee
who
she
says sexually assaulted her,
we stopped what we were
doing and tuned in from our
respective
locations.
Every
time
the
Senate
Judiciary
Committee called for a break,
we
reconvened
via
text
message.
Through our discussion of
Ford’s remarkable composure
and
Kavanaugh’s
boyish
temper,
one
particular
comment shone through. “I
can’t imagine being at Paris
Fashion Week right now,” one
of my friends wrote. “With all
of this happening, the shows
seem so unimportant.”
At the time, I felt the same
sense of disdain for the fashion
set, those I would have admired
in any other circumstance. “I
couldn’t agree more,” I replied
without a second thought.
Clothes were significant in
their own right, but nothing
they could convey was worth
shifting my attention away
from the American political
sphere, even for a moment.
The very next day, I was
proven wrong. On Friday, Sept.
28, day five of Paris Fashion
Week’s
Spring-Summer
2019 season, Hedi Slimane
sent his debut collection for
Celine
down
the
runway.
Everything about it was cold,
hard evidence for fashion’s
role in representing a singular
moment
within
the
global
moral
landscape.
In
this
case, that moment was sad,
demeaning and, in the eyes of
some, downright hopeless.
Slimane served as creative
director
at
Saint
Laurent
from 2012 to 2016. He is often
lauded as the brains behind the
house’s revival; he introduced
an epoch of heroin-chic, all-
black-everything,
sending
emaciated rocker boys and
girls down catwalks season
after season, outfitting them
in minidresses, trim leather
jackets
and
Chelsea
boots
emblazoned
with
glittering
stars. During Slimane’s tenure,
Saint Laurent embodied an
unattainable
effortlessness
that made the fashion industry
swoon. After his first few
collections at the label, the
consensus
rang
out:
This
would be known as the era of
the tasteful ’90s resurgence,
of club kids with legs like baby
deer and cigarettes poking
through plump crimson lips.
The United States political
climate was perfectly poised
to embrace Slimane’s Saint
Laurent. These were the days
of the Obama administration
and the rise of Instagram stars
like Emily Ratajkowski, whose
simultaneous sex appeal and
political activism proved to
the American public that the
human body could serve as
a platform for liberation. It
made
perfect
sense,
then,
that Slimane would choose to
relocate the brand’s operations
to sunny LA, where critics and
admirers alike expected him to
grow Saint Laurent for years to
come.
But nothing in fashion is ever
that simple. On Apr. 4, 2016,
just two years after the move
to Los Angeles, Saint Laurent
announced that Slimane would
be leaving the house, succeeded
by
former
Versus
Versace
designer Anthony Vaccarello,
who promptly began a quest
toward
maintaining
the
brand’s reputation as the go-to
atelier for those who live fast,
die young and have the means
to shop designer. Meanwhile,
the switch left Slimane in
fashion’s
no-man’s-land
of
designers
departed,
joined
by the likes of Alber Elbaz,
former creative director of
Lanvin, and Peter Copping, the
successor to Oscar De La Renta
at his eponymous label.
Saint Laurent’s switcheroo
was no doubt dramatic, but
it was nothing compared to
the tail end of 2016, when the
fashion industry experienced
what may have been its most
seismic shift in recent history:
Phoebe
Philo,
the
illusive
creative director of Céline,
would be stepping down after
nearly a decade at the Parisian
label’s helm.
Worn and adored by everyone
from the Kardashians to the
women of Wall Street, Phoebe
Philo’s Céline was smart over
everything else, equal parts
aesthetic and function. Her
tenure turned the brand into a
reigning authority on garments
made by a real-life woman,
for real-life women (albeit
rich ones). The “glove shoes”
from
her
spring-summer
2015 collection balanced the
grandeur of a chunky block
heel with the security and ease
of a ballet flat. Season after
season, her slip dresses landed
impeccably on the curves of
every body, offering wearers a
glimpse into a world in which
beauty was truly effortless. She
redefined the “it” bag with the
inimitable Luggage tote. She
ushered older women back into
the fashion spotlight when she
cast author Joan Didion, then
80 years old, in a 2015 eyewear
campaign.
Everything Philo rolled out
felt intimate and relatable,
perhaps due in part to the
fact that, after convincing
parent company LVMH to
build a studio for Céline in her
native London, she essentially
worked from home. According
to notorious fashion journalist
Cathy
Horyn,
Philo
was
known for her insistence that
“all her design choices were
personal.” When dreaming up
a collection, she took not only
her own artistic vision into
account but expressed concern
for how her garments would
fit into the lives of those who
wore
them.
Whether
such
consideration was conscious is
not the point; it happened, and
it revolutionized the way the
21st century woman wears her
clothes.
“Look around this winter, on
subways and buses — wherever
there’s a woman in a camel
coat, gray pants, and white
boots — that’s Phoebe Philo
who did that,” wrote Sarah
Mower, Chief Critic for Vogue.
com, in an article following
news of the departure. “Even if
the wearers have never heard
of Céline, it was Philo who put
together the uniform which
holds working women together
today.”
Who could replace a woman
of such stature, so acutely
in-tune
with
the
modern
meaning of femininity?
On Jan. 21, 2018, LVMH
officially appointed Slimane
as artistic, creative and image
director
of
Céline,
along
with
announcing
that
the
label would be extending its
reach
into
menswear.
The
proclamation was met with a
healthy mix of excitement and
apprehension from fashion’s
best and brightest. Why enlist
Slimane, purveyor of bourgeois
glamour, to follow up one
of the greatest minimalists
fashion has ever seen? Why
add menswear to a brand
known for its resonance with
women across contexts? Writer
Haley Mlotek said it best
in an interview for Fashion
Magazine: “I don’t think the
next designer of Céline had to
be a woman necessarily, but I
had hoped it would be someone
with a demonstrated interest in
making what women wanted.”
After months of anticipation
fueled by media buzz and a
shiny new logo — Slimane
dropped the accent, rebranding
as “Celine” — it came time
for fashion’s favorite bad boy
to present his latest venture
to the world. Last Friday,
hordes of industry insiders and
Slimane’s closest pals (read:
Lady Gaga) gathered at the
Hôtel des Invalides in Paris,
eager to absorb, or perhaps to
judge, what the reimagination
When Celine met Kananaugh: Does
nobody care about women in 2018?
TESS GARCIA
Daily Style Editor
CELINE
Though Slimane
unleashed
a whopping
96 looks for
his inaugural
collection, not one
showed visible
recognition of
the house’s past.
Rather than
acknowledge any
aspect of Celine’s
rich, matriarchal
heritage, Slimane
used the platform
it gave him to pay
homage to himself
Anger becomes activism
in ‘Rage Becomes Her’
BOOK REVIEW
I grew up in a world where
women were socialized to be
silent and polite, to not speak
too much or too loudly. I grew
up thinking that I too needed
to close my legs, my lips and
consequently my
emotions too. I
thought
it
was
just a “me” thing,
that I suppressed
my emotions. My
anxiety and anger
were internalized
rather
than
expressed.
Clenching
my
teeth as I slept,
clenching
my
wrists as I paced
back
and
forth
in a torrential downpour of
thoughts.
Everything
was
constrained inward and no
worries, no frustrations, no
emotion were let out. I was
angry. I have always been
angry. I just never knew what
to do about it.
Reading Soraya Chemaly’s
“Rage Becomes Her” was far
more than a sign of relief — it
was enlightening, insightful
but mostly enraging. Does it
not bring you to tears that “in
the United States a person is
sexually assaulted every two
minutes,” a majority of which
are women? Or that “ ... 32,000
US women” are impregnated
through rape each year? Or
that fewer than three percent
of rapists are ever prosecuted?
Because it turns my blood to
high heat.
This book could not have
come out at a more pertinent
time given today’s political
climate. With the hearing for
Brett
Kavanaugh’s
multiple
assault
accusations
this
week, every inch of my skin
is crawling. The hierarchy of
superiority and privilege that
coddles white men in power
from facing the repercussions
of their actions is infuriating,
to say the least. But more than
the inclination of Kavanaugh,
the president and multiple
other male senators to ridicule
and
doubt
Dr.
Christine Blasey
Ford sheds light
on the stomach-
wrenching
victim-blaming
that
permeates
our
political
culture.
People
often
don’t
want
to
accept
the
world
and
their place in it
so instead they
“up the ante on
gaslighting,
victim
blaming
... and adamantly defending
the
status
quo.”
These
manipulative
tactics
often
shame and silence victims
of
assault
who
may
take
years gathering the courage
to publically speak on such
personally disturbing topics.
Dr. Ford’s hearing echoes
the 1991 Anita Hill case against
Clarence Thomas, in which she
boldly confronted an all-white,
all-male council of senators
and had her credibility torn to
shreds. Anita Hill was never
heard then, and Dr. Ford is
definitely
not
being
heard
now. By not believing women
and victims of assault, we are
not only taking away their
voice, but also suppressing
their humanity. And this is
something
worth
getting
angry about.
If movements like #MeToo
or #TimesUp have made men
feel vulnerable or attacked
by the women who decided
it was their turn to speak the
truth, then, in the words of
Chemaly, “Welcome to our
world.” I will never be sorry
that
Kavanaugh’s
“family
honor” and reputation have
received a two-week bad report
card when his actions have
demolished the life, mental
health and psyche of the
women he assaulted. Nothing
will ever equate to the years of
pain and trauma these victims
endure, or the number of “dick
pics, cannibalistic rape porn,
racist gore” and even death
threats that get sent to women
who come forward about their
assault. Too many people are
focused on safeguarding the
“honor” and prosperity of men
rather than valuing the rights
and dignity of women.
“Rage
Becomes
Her”
provides more than fume-
filled statistics — it is a self-
help manual for transforming
rage into action that will have
lasting political and social
implications.
Some
tips
I
find helpful for dealing with
personal (or political) anger
are cultivating communities,
developing self-awareness and
challenging binaries, among
others.
No
more
standing
aside, allowing power-hungry
men to silence the voices of
women and assault victims
alike.
Revise
your
anger
to make it something you
embrace, a tool that pushes you
forward into the world with
wisdom, passion and freedom.
In Chemaly’s words, “Anger is
the demand of accountability.
It is evaluation, judgment and
refutation. It is reflective,
visionary and participatory.
It’s a speech act, a social
statement, an intention and a
purpose.”
I am a woman, and I am
liberated by my rage. You
should be too.
TESSA ROSE
Daily Arts Writer
“Rage
Becomes
Her”
Soraya Chemaly
Atria Books
Sept. 11, 2018
STYLE NOTEBOOK