In Paris, 50 Shades of Chic

Hedi Slimane isn't in Paris, but his Spring 2025 collection for Celine is.

Yesterday, the designer once again opted out of a proper runway show and instead dropped a film showcasing the house’s latest ready-to-wear and accessories offerings. The pieces were on view at the Celine offices, giving people on the ground here the chance to see and feel Slimane’s pretty, 1960s-era lady clothes IRL.

This season, Slimane titled his collection “Un été français” and explained via his show notes that he conceived it while reading Francois Sagan’s 1965 novel La Chamade, which tells the story of a woman choosing to leave her working-class lover to be with a man who has a higher position in society—but also simply loves her for who she is.

There were traces of this character in Slimane’s sumptuous clothes, like a sophisticated pink tweed skirt suit and prim, pretty pussy-bow blouses. You could also see it in his sequin twin sets paired with sleek pencil skirts. It all looked expensive, elevated, but just playful enough for the It girls who are drawn to Slimane’s cool-kid interpretation of the quintessentially French brand.

At Sacai, Chitose Abe also leaned harder into the Frenchness she’s imbued in her designs since starting her brand ten years ago. Abe’s sculptural pieces are wearable works of art—everyday couture, you could call it. She creates wardrobe staples that people wear forever not because they’re classics but because they pack a punch, like this season’s mariniere-striped blazer-dress hybrid with deconstructed double-breasted buttons and a short train at the back. The sharply tailored dark-wash denim vest and tiered ruffle skirt were killer, too. The looks were fierce and felt like exactly the right kind of wardrobe for this moment, one in which fashion is focused more and more on making a statement rather than playing it safe.

Stella McCartney is always one for a statement. Last season, it was her t-shirts printed with the words “It’s about fucking time” that spoke volumes about the climate crisis. This season, she still focused her messaging on sustainability, and she did so with a spring collection that was as stylish as it was covetable. McCartney makes a hot suit look powerful and easy all at once.

So does her colleague Gabriela Hearst, whose latest offering was inspired by goddesses. No one makes a wispy bodycon dress look as breezy as Hearst. Her suiting and chic leather cape dresses stood out this season. Both McCartney and Hearst make beautiful, uncomplicated clothes that women can wear for their 9 to 5 lives, the kind that represent nonchalant but oh-so-great taste.

Taste—good, bad, and somewhere in between—is Demna’s favorite topic. For the last ten years at the helm of Balenciaga, he has created collections that subvert and distort our notions of traditional luxury. This season, the designer continued the sort of self-reflective, self-referential “therapy,” as he refers to it, that he’s been toying with over the last three seasons.

This time, he started with the memory of being a kid and designing “collections” at his grandmother’s dining table, putting on fashion shows for his family. This resulted in Balenciaga’s showspace being anchored by an actual giant, wildly long table with chairs. Seated at the table were editors, stylists, tastemakers, and VIPs, including Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Kidman—a wacky, punkish dinner party straight out of Demna’s brain.

This collection took a new focus on hot dressing. The first models that appeared on the table-slash-runway wore tromp l’oleil bodysuits printed with lacy lingerie, a direction that, speaking backstage after the show, Demna said was a challenge for him. Known for his piled-on, boldly tailored and exaggerated silhouettes, Demna noted that he “wanted to discover areas of style he wasn't familiar with.”

Of course there were many Demna-isms on the literal table, too—a jacket with a lapel made of jeans that stood up straight around the neck, assemblage hoodie looks, peaked shoulder gowns, and Cristobal shapes. It felt like another personal collection for Demna, one in which he continued to challenge himself but also double (triple? quadruple?) down on his singular vision of style, which is ultimately a rejection of traditional notions of chic.

“The fashion world is trying to be so perfect and impeccable,” Demna said post-show. “For me, that’s not what fashion is. Fashion needs to get messed up. It needs to get fucked up.”

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