Celine: Listening First

HAKAN BAHAR

In their first collection, a fashion house’s new creative director usually introduces themselves. They propose a new aesthetic, put distance between themselves and the past, or reinterpret it. With his first men’s collection at Celine, however, Michael Rider chooses an entirely different path. He does not tell us about himself; he tells us how he wants to work.

The collection note is the first sign of this. Rather than speaking of fabrics, silhouettes or sources of inspiration, it leaves short phrases on the page: Tough and gentle. Travelling light. Personalising. Listening. Risk. Style. Intimacy. It is not as bold as a manifesto, nor as personal as a diary. It reads more like notes pinned to the wall of a design studio, to be reread every morning. At the bottom of the page stands a single sentence: “Building something bigger. Something with roots that will live for many years.” To me, this sentence sums up not the collection, but Rider’s view of Celine.

As I read the text, the word that caught my attention most was listening. Fashion has been talking for a long time; more often than not, it shouts. Every season we see bigger stories, louder references and more striking images. Rider, by contrast, opens his first collection by speaking of listening. Even this small choice says a great deal about the kind of creative director he will be. For taking over a fashion house is not only about designing new clothes; it also demands an understanding of the memory accumulated over the years.

Perhaps that is why his first collection for Celine does not pursue a single aesthetic. The same wardrobe holds a classic blazer, a voluminous knit, high-waisted tailored trousers and a colourful nylon anorak. These pieces, which at first glance seem unrelated, are not trying to tell the same story. As Rider himself put it: “We create the characters we want to be.” At the heart of the collection lies not a uniform look, but the idea that very different people can live within the same wardrobe.

This approach made me feel that Celine has chosen not to reject its past, but to keep talking with it. Colours recalling the Phoebe Philo era, the refined tailoring of the Michael Kors years, the quiet luxury the house has carried for so long… None of these is used as nostalgia. Rider does not go back to the past; he carries it into the present. That is why the collection does not try to look new. It tries to look natural.

Another phrase from the press release stayed with me: “Travelling light.” At first glance, it reads like ordinary packing advice. Yet I think it says more than that. Carrying less, owning less, explaining less… and in return, living more, moving more, and allowing clothes to become personal over time. That is why the beaded necklaces, old brooches, tasselled headbands and pieces of fabric carried in the hand that Rider placed throughout the collection read not merely as accessories, but as objects that carry their owner’s story.

Perhaps what makes Michael Rider’s first Celine collection interesting is not that it proposes a new silhouette, but that it asks a more important question: is a wardrobe made only of clothes, or does it also carry the memory of the person who wears it?

The last sentence of the collection note quietly answers that question: “Building something bigger. Something with roots that will live for many years.” In the fashion world, being new is often considered enough. Yet putting down roots is harder than novelty. And that is exactly what Michael Rider’s first step at Celine is aiming for: not to create a season’s worth of excitement, but to build a character that will still be remembered years from now.