Inside Celine's new store concept in New York City
At this point in his career, Hedi Slimane is one of the world's best-known fashion designers. The reclusive Parisian visionary made waves in the early aughts by introducing silhouettes described as "skinny" and "androgynous" to menswear while directing Dior Homme. Legend has it, the late couturier Karl Lagerfeld was so taken with Slimane's creations, he lost 90 pounds just so he could fit into them.
Now he's adding interior designer to his CV with the opening of a new concept store at 650 Madison Avenue, the flagship of French fashion house Celine, for which he was appointed creative director in January 2018. The threads running through the sleek new store is a kind of Miesian geometric monumentalism, an aesthetic composed of natural materials that's at once chic and austere. (Think the Barcelona Pavilion but full of it-bags and ready-to-wear.)
The color palette is heavy and muted with reclaimed oak, monolithic pillars of ghost-white travertine, balsatina lava floors, walls and shelves of cream-veined black granite, with pops of gold in mirrored surfaces. On display are site-specific artworks by James Balmworth, Oscar Tuazon, and Jose Davila. It is one of those spaces where you come for the clothes and stay for the architecture.
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