Celine: Live at The Wiltern, Los Angeles – a three-part report

Last night, inside the iconic art deco Wiltern theatre, Hedi Slimane presented his Celine FW23 collection. The venue has previously played host to such luminaries as Prince, James Brown, Neil Young, Nina Simone, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and many more. Now, Slimane brings his Celine vision to the venue, titled Age of Indieness.

The Interview

Prior to the show, guests received an extremely rare interview with Hedi Slimane, conducted by Lizzy Goodman, author of Meet Me in the Bathroom, a riotous oral history of New York rock in the 2000s. This year, the book was adapted into a documentary, promoted using photography by Slimane. During this seminal era, Goodman and Slimane were “living parallel lives”, as Goodman puts it in the interview, both swept up in red-hot nascent creative scenes across either side of the Atlantic. Specifically in London, Slimane not only tapped into the burgeoning Indie music scene, but tuned it: as a documenter and designer for these young bands imprinting their own sound on the city’s rich musical heritage. We’re talking The Libertines, The Paddingtons, Franz Ferdinand, Littl’ans, The Rakes. Slimane was equally a face in the crowd and a curator translating this new lexicon into exquisite, era-defining clothing at the helm of Dior Homme, and later Saint Laurent.  

“The indie movement became an avalanche that ended up defining the first half of the decade,” says Slimane in conversation with Goodman, articulating the feeling at the time. “That sense of assumed amateurism or imperfection was a relief and provided a much needed sense of vulnerability… It was simply about music and a sense of community.” 

I was going to gigs all the time and saw the whole London scene emerging. The energy of it, the profusion of exciting bands, the sense of community defined a golden age for indie music in the UK. The bands and their fans were extremely joyful, warm, and free-spirited.”

Now, twenty years on, indie is having a revival. A younger generation is finding joy in the scene’s freewheeling attitude and chaotic charm, while those who lived it first-hand are looking back with what Slimane refers to as “optimistic naivety”. The designer finds parallels in collective feeling during Indie’s emergence after 9/11 and its re-emergence after Covid; a return to analogue, to living in the moment, to entering an underground room to discover a band and crowd united in distortion. (One Slimane quote perfectly encapsulates this: “I remember once Doherty arriving extremely late for a show in Paris, showing up at the venue, simply going through the crowd to reach the stage.”)

“It’s probably time to go back to analog mode, and get the filtered, ostracizing, theatricality of social media in perspective,” says Slimane. “A return to a sense of blunt and raw sincerity.” 

The collection

Back in those early 00s days, Slimane’s shows were unlike any other. They were loud, energetic, and stubborn in their attitude. Musicians became runway models, and in tune, many of the designer’s models picked up guitars.

Yesterday’s show at The Wiltern was fully-amped. Jack White’s iconic Hello Operator guitar riff came fizzing out the speakers – a screeching, sonic batsignal for indie’s drainpipe-jeaned, skinny-tied crowd to gather. And here they were in their splendour. Something of a Slimane greatest hits, silhouettes returned to slim, androgynous form – shoulders narrow, trousers skin-tight.

These refined rebels threw leather jackets over sequinned dresses – loose ties as languid punctuation. Capes swayed in step alongside beige trenchcoats and tweed blazers that brought Celine’s history into clarity. Wool overcoats and louche suiting for the guys (fringes to their eyes), leather trousers with Libs4eva military jackets and too-small waistcoats. Blouson jackets, lamé jackets, faux fur, fringed suede boots, velvet, pussybow shirts, baker boy hats and belts hung loosely around the hips. Embroidery, shearling, velvet, leather, shimmering tassels – that balance between effortless cool and the most meticulous artisan craft is Slimane’s most enduring riff, it rings out across everything. The show was closed by a series of exquisite, mirrorball eveningwear looks that danced under the spotlights. 

The gig

The collection’s encore saw the venue translate the electricity of the clothes into a gig for the ages. Iggy Pop, Interpol, The Strokes and The Kills each took to the stage for a set of classics. All musicians who Slimane has worked with throughout his career, Iggy took to the stage in a sequinned black suit, bare-chested – obviously – before swiftly throwing off the jacket as he launched into The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog and Search and Destroy, while The Strokes brought the pages of Goodman’s Meet Me in the Bathroom to the stage, performing Automatic Stop, 12:51 and a finale of Is This It that saw the audience join the band on stage, dancing around Casablancas and co, as Slimane nodded and smiled at the back of the stage.  

“I presume the musicians I knew early on, or that I met in my early days designing, and even through today, had an understanding that I was coming from music, from that perspective of the stage,” says Slimane to Goodman describing that intuitive kinship with the musicians he works with. “They probably simply recognized themselves in my design and approached me for that reason. It was always exciting to see my clothes ending up on stage where they participated to the performance.”