CELINE 10 WOMEN WINTER 21

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This 2021 Parade collection remains a defining reference point in the ongoing critical reassessment of Hedi Slimane's tenure at Celine, which continues to influence the house's visual language through 2026.

Hedi Slimane and the Vision Behind Parade

When Hedi Slimane joined Celine as artistic, creative, and image director in 2018, he immediately signaled his intent to reshape the house around his own deeply personal aesthetic vocabulary. The Parade collection, presented as Celine 10 Women Winter 21, represents a fully realized expression of that vision. Slimane drew directly from French Symbolist poetry, anchoring the collection in verses by Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, and Arthur Rimbaud. These are not decorative references. They are structural ones, framing the entire presentation as a meditation on youth, darkness, and inner radiance.

Slimane both directed and styled the film, a decision that underscores the degree to which he treats fashion presentation as a unified artistic act rather than a logistical exercise. His approach collapses the boundaries between garment, image, and narrative, producing work that functions as much as cinema as it does as a seasonal collection. This dual authorship is a signature of his practice and one of the most debated aspects of his legacy at Celine. Supporters argue it produces a coherence rarely achieved in contemporary fashion; critics contend it limits the collaborative energy that has historically defined the house. What is not in dispute is the clarity and conviction of the visual language on display in Parade.

Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte: Setting as Statement

Filming Celine 10 Women Winter 21 at the Jardins d’Andre Le Notre within the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte was a deliberate curatorial choice that rewards close attention. Vaux-le-Vicomte is one of the most significant examples of 17th-century French classical architecture and landscape design, predating Versailles and serving as its direct inspiration. Andre Le Notre, who designed the gardens, went on to shape the grounds of Versailles for Louis XIV. By situating the Parade collection within this specific landscape, Slimane positioned Celine within a lineage of French cultural authority that is simultaneously grand and quietly subversive.

The choice of location also reflects a broader tendency in Slimane’s Celine era to use French heritage not as a nostalgic gesture but as a form of sharp, self-aware positioning. The formal geometry of Le Notre’s gardens, with their structured parterres, reflective pools, and long perspectival axes, provides a visual counterpoint to the youthful, slightly untamed energy of the cast and the collection itself. This tension between classical order and adolescent restlessness is central to the mood of the film. Filming took place in March 2021, during a period of significant pandemic-related restrictions across France, and all Covid-19 health protocols were observed throughout the production, a fact the house made explicit in the original credits.

The Soundtrack and Sensory World of Celine 10

An original soundtrack commissioned specifically for a fashion film is a meaningful investment, and the music created for Celine 10 Women Winter 21 reflects the seriousness with which Slimane approaches every dimension of a presentation. “Un Daydream,” performed by Regina Demina and written and produced by Demina alongside Charles Caste, was co-produced by Slimane himself. The track incorporates harp arrangements by Leonie Favre-Tissot, adding a quality that is at once classical and contemporary, ethereal and grounded.

The decision to commission original music rather than license an existing track gives Celine 10 a self-contained quality that reinforces the house’s autonomy and artistic ambition. The soundtrack does not simply accompany the visuals. It constructs a separate emotional register that interacts with the imagery, deepening the dreamlike atmosphere Slimane was building through his use of poetry, landscape, and cast. This approach to sound design has become a recognizable element of Slimane’s Celine presentations and distinguishes them from the vast majority of fashion films produced during the same period.

The cast of Celine 10, comprising more than thirty women, was styled with the restrained precision that defines Slimane’s approach. Hair direction was handled by Esther Langham, and makeup by Christelle Cocquet, both collaborators whose work reinforces the film’s measured, poetic tone rather than competing with it.