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LAUREN VALENTI

Celine Is Launching Its First Fragrance Collection by Hedi Slimane—Here’s Why It’s a Big Deal


Photo: Courtesy of Celine

When Hedi Slimane was first announced as Celine’s new creative director, there was a promise of expansion into fragrance. Brand loyalists have since waited with bated breath. Let’s not forget: With the exception of its first scent, Vent Fou, a floral green bouquet of rose, jasmine, and galbanum, launched in 1964, the French fashion house has steered clear of fragrance. But now, a year and a half into his tenure, Slimane is releasing the “Haute Parfumerie” collection, comprised of 11 perfumes—eight for daytime, and three for the evening.

Slimane’s wardrobe-like range is unisex, deliberately making “no distinction or separation between traditional masculine and feminine notes,” the press release says. Inspired by smoky Parisian nightclubs and French perfumery in the ’60s and ’70s, each nostalgia-stoking scent is laced with Gallic-minded notes, such as iris, rose, tree moss, or chypre accord, to cement Slimane’s “powdery olfactory signature.” Nine of the evocatively named fragrances—Parade, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Dans Paris, Cologne Française, La Peau Nue, Eau de Californie, Reptile, Black Tie, and Night Clubbing—will be coming out this fall, while the others—Rimbaud and Bois Dorman—will be released later in 2020.

Marrying traditional French glassmaking with his perennially modern attitude, Slimane designed a sleek bottle bound for prime vanity real estate. Inspired by the minimalism of late 17th-century classicism, as well as the flair of the Art Deco era, the rectangular vessel is cast in rich amber-gold glass and topped off with a glossy onyx cap.

The multifaceted “Haute Parfumerie” collection not only marks Celine’s long-awaited pivot back to fragrance, but Slimane’s much-anticipated return to the art of scent as well. At the helm of Dior Homme, the designer created a trio of Maison Christian Dior fragrances in 2004, which was the first since the house launched in 1947. Since taking over for Phoebe Philo, Slimane has continued to reimagine Celine beyond what comes down the runway. And this milestone not only secures his place in beauty history but cements his ever-uncompromising vision.

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