Womenswear has had a fraught relationship with the pocket for as long as men have been designing women’s clothing and cultural norms (historically devised by the patriarchy) have promoted feminine silhouettes that don’t physically or aesthetically support the additional bulk a pocket-in use implies. It’s a key motive behind the hugely profitable bag market and the seasonal ‘It’ bag culture that steers it, and why a women’s jacket with an inside pocket is a particular rarity and a joy to be celebrated.
The journalist and playwright Bim Adewunmi has for a long time been vocal of her affection for the simple but divisive piece of fabric, most recently using Twitter to applaud the Oscars’ red carpet for its “abundance of ladies’ pockets”. Meanwhile, last June author and NYT bestseller Delilah S. Lawson sent out a Tweet mocking fashions – or rather the executives who command them – that have been prioritised over pockets (“cold shoulder tops in pastels”, “cut-outs in flabby areas”, “shapes that require new bras”) which resonated to the point of going viral.
Hedi Slimane, it seems, has been listening. So proud was he of the pockets that filled his second womenswear collection for Celine – presented at Les Invalides on Friday night – that 56 of the show’s 59 exits placed the models’ hands stubbornly close to the body, buried deep in pockets that might one day be filled with bank cards, car keys, packets of gum, old receipts and tampons – the new Celine woman has no time to be fumbling inside a Mary Poppins-sized tote.
Courtesy of Celine.
This catwalk pose itself is a tricky contradiction – an assessment regularly attributed to women’s fashion – the placement of hands suggesting a self-assured attitude and realising a sense of confidence and independence (from both physical and figurative baggage). Coupled with Slimane’s beloved high heel, however, in a practical sense it doesn’t bode well for moving quickly. Had a model stumbled over on Friday, how quickly would she have been able to put her hands down in the fall? Elsewhere, in popular culture, the hands-in-pocket stance has frequently been adopted by Meghan Markle, and then, as per near everything the ‘modern’ royal does, has been used to discredit her. Proving if nothing else that a black woman in the public eye really cannot ever win.
That Slimane tapped into this very basic, but quite real sartorial inequality should ultimately be recognised as a win for contemporary women’s fashion. (For all her extra-curricular feminism, on the basis of catwalk photos alone one is left unsure of the practical infrastructure of Maria Grazia Chiuri recent clothes at Christian Dior).This pragmatic approach speaks to the new, new Celine by Hedi Slimane. While SS19 was widely considered a hangover of his work at Saint Laurent, AW19 demonstrated that change, actually isn’t beyond the designer. Yes, the young, thin, predominantly Caucasian casting remained, but the clothes had matured, the references altered. The Celine SS19 girl is now the Celine AW19 woman, and the wardrobe showcased befits this.
Courtesy of Celine.
Borrowing from the Celine of the ‘70s, Slimane’s preferred black palette has been swapped for a series of browns, checks and camels. Tight mini dresses were replaced by loose knee length pleats; diamante tiaras cast astray for solid aviators. It’s not hard to imagine the mirrored box, in which Friday’s first model was lowered to the ground and from which the new collection was thus projected to the catwalk, as the portal between the nightclub and the street; the stuff of film montages, of New York-based ‘chick flicks’ that involve one night stands and office jobs where the protagonist is unappreciated, or of an Eric Rohmer mash up that marries Full Moon in Paris with Love in the Afternoon (because the Celine woman we saw on Friday is, absolutely, French).
In the months between Slimane’s debut and this show, the first clothes from the designer have gone on sale; the house’s first men’s-exclusive collection has premiered; the first Celine by Hedi Slimane Oscars frock has been worn by Brie Larson. Off the back of what we saw on Friday, the most interesting questions will be: how will Slimane, whose black and white photography is as much a part of his sell as his clothes, choose to present this revised version of Celine? Which looks will star? And will there be a pocket on display?
See the full collection below:
All images courtesy of Celine.