But it is definitely not what is seen at our National Library!

Hedi Slimane has always made Celine young. His women are often adolescent-tender, and now they are school-going/library-heading smart/casual. Still in video-show format that has a decidedly COVID lockdown vibe, the presentation shared online outside the official calendar that is Paris Fashion Week is set in and around the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in Paris, on the Richelieu site of the vast two-part compound. Built in the 17th century, it was at first the palace of the Italian cardinal Jules Mazarin before a royal library moved in in 1721. Cardinal Mazarin served under two kings, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, under whose reigns the library grew vastly. The building underwent a 12-year renovation and was re-opened in September last year. Celine is the first fashion brand to have models traipse its majestic Salle Ovale (Oval Room), the reading room. The venue is clearly closed for the filming—the emptiness augmented its social-distancing coldness at the height of the pandemic years.

It did not help that the soundtrack of the film is the near-monotonous singing of the early-2000s American band LCD Soundsystem in the single Too Much Love. The film, part fashion show, part commercial, part travel site promotion, seems to echo the sentiment of the song: “What will you say when the day comes/When it’s no fun/When it’s all done/When it’s no fun.” Mr Slimane does not concern himself with projecting anything enjoyable or lively. Whether the show is set in the Stade Louis II stadium in Monaco or the French capital’s Hôtel de la Marine, or at the BNF, the models are typically togged in clothes no different from the previous season, and the season before that, walked purposefully and glumly, without a care of the world. To be sure, the clothes are far from what we see worn to the National Library, or any library here. Our tertiary students, for example, don’t really care how they look on campus or library grounds. So Celine’s spring/summer 2024, an homage to post-adolescents still seemingly drawn to books or the attendant repository, won’t really matter to them, not even if they can ape the looks rather than buy the actual garments.

To Mr Slimane, the clothes don’t really matter if you have beauty and youth on your side. Many of the pieces shown could have been from the remade-for-Japan Forever 21. How special is, for example, a track top and matching running shorts (admittedly a look that would not be out of place at any National University of Singapore library)? Or, a varsity jacket with a tartan cheerleader skirt? Or, a checked blazer with flared jeans? Individually, the clothes have the design flair of the output of H&M, only better made! They come together by a deft touch of styling to effect looks that the American media love to call “French girl style” or, as Goop defined its components, “a perfectly tailored black blazer, well-cut denim, booties and heels that are both classic and cool, and button-downs that look like they might be borrowed from the boys.” Not coincidentally, the Celine collection was dubbed “Tomboy”—a description that is no longer potentially unflattering as it once was, but an aesthetic that many women are proud to be associated when recalling their younger years.

But there is nothing too androgynous or masculine about the collection. While there are a couple of rather mannish, slim (boyfriend?) suits, most of what are backdropped by books have a far less bookish or scholastic sense about them, and are far more girlish than boyish. There is no mistaking this to be intellectual. It is nothing too studied too, although the aggregate is a palpable effort to keep Celine away from the expectations of today’s luxury fashion: newness and change. And Hedi Slimane is persistent in assembling a collection with pieces that would inevitably be called “casual cool”, even the evening wear. While it’s true that few, if any, here would don Celine to the library, many would relate to the not-so-pulled-together and its kindred impassivity. If those running shorts beckon, and they surely will, there would always be a version on Shein.

Photos: Celine