Earlier this year, Phoebe Philo announced her departure from the luxury French fashion label Céline. Her successor, Hedi Slimane, is already making grand changes to the historic brand. Slimane, who was formerly the creative director at Saint Laurent (née Yves), is dropping the accent from the brand, so it simply reads as “Celine”.
The typeface has also been reimagined. The label refers to the new font as a “1930’s modernist” typeface. Slimane made similar changes when he took over at Saint Laurent in 2012. As mentioned, he dropped the Yves from the label and infused it with a punk rock sort of youth, which caused a lot of fashion controversy at the time. However, the brand hasn’t changed the name back.
It seems like now, Hedi is offering up (willingly or not) more transparency and insight into his creative process. In an Instagram caption, the brand explains their decision to drop the accent from the iconic label. “The accent on the ‘E’ has been removed to enable a simplified and more balanced proportion, evoking the Celine collections of the 1960’s where the accent wasn’t often used,” the brand writes.
A quick peek at the new Celine Instagram account reveals that Hedi’s team has completely wiped the page, save for a mix of four new campaign photos and videos. Hedi also took a similar approach to revamping social channels when he was at Saint Laurent.
Lady Gaga was recently spotted out and about carrying a Celine bag from Hedi’s first collection. The full ready-to-wear collection, which will also include menswear, will debut this month at Paris Fashion Week.