Thirty years in the making, Hedi Slimane’s latest Celine collection transports the Celine man from the streets of Paris to Holkham Hall, a rolling 18th-century estate on Britain’s Norfolk coastline designed by William Kent for the 1st Earl of Leicester in the grand Palladian style.
The collection is presented in a film directed by the designer (watch it below), a cinematic short that sees models walk amid the home’s porticos and manicured gardens, their outfits recalling Evelyn Waugh and his social circle in the 1920s. Indeed, the Summer 2025 collection’s title, ‘The Bright Young’, references ‘Bright Young Things’, a name given to the group of hard-partying socialites and bohemians which would be satirised by Waugh in his 1930 novel Vile Bodies.
Celine Summer 2025 menswear: ‘The Bright Young’
The particular allure of England, says Slimane, has been percolating for the past three decades, since he was a student at Ecole de Louvre in the latest 1980s. Then, he wrote an essay on ‘Anglomania’, which spanned the Comte D’Artois, who brought an English influence to the French court in Versailles, to 1920s socialites Stephen James Napier Tennant and photographer Cecile Beaton, known for their decadent, liberated lifestyles as part of Waugh’s set.
Slimane has also long been embedded in the British music scene. In 2020, he photographed six young British musicians for his ‘Portrait of a Performer’ series, including Bad Static’s Floyd Magee and Junior Cobbinah of Malady.
Here, though, Slimane riffs on the traditions and uniforms of the British upper classes – from straw boater hats and public school uniforms, to tailcoats and rowing blazers – while flourishes of romance come in sprays of country garden flowers that emerge from the brims of hats or the baskets of bikes, the latter specially designed by the designer for the film. Footwear sees plays on classic British styles: the monk strap, the derby and the Richelieu Oxford shoe.
Still, the collection retains the frisson of subversion that runs throughout Slimane’s work. Abbreviated chequered shorts are cut high on the thigh, worn with knee-high electric red socks, while tailoring has a louche, undone sensibility and is often worn with dark sunglasses – long a symbol of Slimane’s rebellious style.
Meanwhile, moments of craft demonstrate the savoir-faire of the Celine atelier and community of craftspeople, whether the 1920s English summer cashmere cloth rewoven for Celine for the collection, or hand embroidery, forming trompe l’oeil motifs or ‘heraldic’ Celine patches that reproduce techniques on early 20th-century military uniforms.
With its horseriding on the lawns, zooming bicycles and lingering, longing shots of the palatial grounds and its yearning inhabitants, the film recalls the great British costume dramas like Brideshead Revisited, an adaption of the Waugh novel screened on the BBC in the early 1980s (which in turn would inspire 2023’s breakout film Saltburn).
Alongside last season’s Winter 2024 collection film, a Western epic directed by Slimane in California’s Mojave Desert, this latest celluloid outing is a testament to his ambitious cinematic vision – an auteur, as much as a designer.
Watch the film of the Celine Summer 2025 menswear show below.
