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LOS ANGELES—Hedi Slimane of
LVMH
fashion brand Celine waved his (skinny, black) magic wand Thursday night, transforming Los Angeles’s Wiltern Theater into a portal to the early 2000s.
For his fall/winter 2023 womenswear show (which included some men’s styles), the brand’s creative lead sent 87 looks oozing with the debauched, indie-rock spirit of that period down the runway-cum-stage, set to a looped version of “Hello Operator” by the White Stripes, co-produced by the polymath Mr. Slimane himself. After the fashion show, the real show began: performances by Iggy Pop, Interpol, the Kills (as DJs) and the era’s ultimate mascots, the Strokes, now in their 40s.
Or was the real show the audience itself? With a scarcity of the typical fashion-industry types, the crowd of nearly 2,000 included an A-list Hollywood contingent from “Elvis” star Austin Butler to Dustin Hoffman, and musicians from Doja Cat to Kim Gordon. The rapper Wiz Khalifa, one of the brand’s most fervent fans, stoically nodded his head in the front row. Perhaps most notable were the scores of young musicians and creative types wearing a mix of vintage pieces with Celine sprinkled in, mobbing the smoking section, paying respects to elder statesmen like Beck, and stuffing their faces with Celine-logo french fries.
Wiz Khalifa, one of the brand’s loyal fans, at the Celine show.
Photo:
Getty Images for CELINE
One tall woman in a ghostly white nightgown and smeared, Courtney Love-style lipstick puzzled over the ice cream flavors, misunderstanding the word “mango.” “Mang-who?” she asked, giggling. “Sorry, I’m on mushrooms.”
The attendees, so many of whom were born after the Strokes’ seminal 2001 album “Is This It,” looked fully on board with Mr. Slimane’s Y2K revival. They leapt to the stage to dance during the Strokes’ set, and even sang along to 75-year-old shirtless Iggy Pop’s hits.
“All my friends showed up,” Mr. Slimane told me, looking pleased and mingling with the crowd amid golden Celine-logo balloons. “I love the community here. It’s photographers and musicians I know. It feels so good to be back in L.A.” After several years working and living in Los Angeles, Mr. Slimane moved back to France in 2016 following a bout of tinnitus as he described in “Age of Indieness,” a slim book that accompanied the show.
Celine’s Hedi Slimane onstage at his show with model Kaia Gerber.
Photo:
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
“It’s that whole ‘indie sleaze’ moment all over again,” said the stylist Jay Massacret between performances, using the term for the aesthetic that has bubbled up on social media thanks to Instagram accounts like @indiesleaze. “It’s like Hedi is quoting himself from that era.”
From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Slimane was the creative director of Dior Homme, where he popularized androgynous skinny jeans and skinny suits, and dressed rock stars both old (Mick Jagger) and then-young (Pete Doherty). The rock-informed silhouette he honed at Dior would continue at Yves Saint Laurent, where he designed from 2012 to 2016, and Celine, where he has been since 2018.
The show ended with a suite of glittering gowns that evoked Hollywood glamour.
Photo:
Courtesy of CELINE
Mr. Slimane, who is often loath to explain himself, is not running away from his own history. His connection to the early 2000s is discussed in “Age of Indieness,” a bound conversation between himself and Lizzy Goodman, the author of 2017 oral history “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” which describes the rebirth of rock in noughties New York and London. Ms. Goodman’s book was recently turned into a documentary, a poster for which Mr. Slimane, a photographer, contributed images.
In the conversation with Ms. Goodman, Mr. Slimane discusses the resurgence of interest in that time period, with hashtags like “#y2kstyle” proliferating. He says, “It’s been a couple years now since the reference to this period emerged on social media—TikTok in particular—looking back at my decade in design and rock photography. Technically, this generation was born when we were all defining it, codifying it, in music, fashion, literature and photography. It is, as always, a cycle, and the time probably feels right for a new generation to look back, get inspired, make it their own.”
As to his aesthetic codes repeating, much in the same way that the chorus of “Hello Operator” infinity-looped during the show, “You secretly want people to think you are always designing the same thing or taking the same photograph—that is precisely the whole point,” Mr. Slimane says. “You become and embody the style you meticulously pursue with obsession and passion.”
Musicians Beck and Maggie Rogers were among the audience.
Photo:
Getty Images for CELINE
Accordingly, Thursday night’s expression of his decadeslong vision looked familiar: slim jeans, leather pants, babydoll dresses, glittery blouses, capes and so many boots. The styling, by Mr. Slimane himself, embraced some early-2000s tropes like the giant handbag nestled in the crook of the elbow (three new styles: the Anita, the Annabel and the Celine Abbey), and skinny pants tucked into boots.
Despite the rampant enthusiasm for the show, not everyone was convinced by its nostalgia trip. Jason Stewart, a Los Angeles DJ and podcaster in attendance, says “you have to evolve.” He mused whether Mr. Slimane should hold so tightly to the past era, instead of pushing those motifs into the future.
The show was set to a looped version of ‘Hello Operator’ by the White Stripes.
Photo:
Courtesy of CELINE
Every designer and musician must walk the line between revisiting their greatest hits and trying new things. Mr. Slimane lands firmly on one side of that divide. In “Age of Indieness,” Ms. Goodman writes that “often, true evolution is about returning over and over to your core self.”
“Did you like the show?” asked Mr. Slimane, schmoozing with his friends in the hallway of the historic venue before Interpol’s set. “I hope you’ll stay for the next act.”
Write to Rory Satran at rory.satran@wsj.com
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