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It’s a Francis Ford Coppola moment. The director’s “Megalopolis” premiered at Cannes last week, although Hedi Slimane was already tapping into the Coppola vibe earlier this year when he filmed his fall 2024 menswear collection.
Celine’s artistic and image director created a stunning, and melancholy, 14-minute film shot mainly in the Mojave Desert, and set to the soundtrack of Hector Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.”
The grand and romantic piece of music captured the imagination of the then 11-year-old Slimane, and added resonance to this dramatic collection that played out in black, white and gray with flashes of gold and silver.
Slimane described it as his “return” to sartorial tailoring, and it was packed with the whippet-thin silhouettes he’s been doing for decades, albeit with a more formal, gentlemanly edge. As always, they were for the rangy crowd only.
With the music by Berlioz (conducted by Leonard Bernstein) soaring in the background, a suite of black helicopters appeared, “Apocalypse Now” style, over the desert — but they were not on the attack.
Instead, one of them hovered low to deliver a Celine-branded jukebox to a long road running through the desert. The choppers eventually gave way to a motorcade of black 1960s Cadillacs, and a lineup of lonely-looking models striding down the road, some wearing black, wide-brimmed preacher’s hats.
Despite the funereal mood, there was a fresh, youthful feel to the collection. Slimane’s jackets were lean and cropped, with shrunken sleeves that landed just above the wrist. Shirts had little white collars, and ties were skinny, or stringy and tied into a narrow bow.
The designer said he was thinking about “1960s tailoring inspired by the Anglomania of the 19th century,” hence all of the frock coats, three-button suits and hand-embroidered waistcoats in silk, cashmere and vicuna.
It was difficult to see all of that detail on film, and from such a distance, but there’s no arguing with Slimane, one of the most influential menswear designers of the new millennium. Ever the contrarian, he also chooses to show his collections many months after the close of the European show weeks.
This collection will be available in-store from the middle of July.
Like all good directors, Slimane also left room for some surprises. There were lightning bolts of metallic detail: glittering gold or silver-studded coats came as a shock on that lonely highway, as did the sweep of a dark hooded cape covered in black paillettes. It was ready-made for the romantic, the artist, or the star ready to take his bow.
