In one of the swiftest rounds of fashion musical chairs in recent memory, Celine announced on Wednesday that Hedi Slimane would be leaving his position as the label’s artistic director, but his post wasn’t vacant for long. Hours later, the brand named Mr. Slimane’s replacement: Michael Rider, a former design director at Celine who most recently oversaw Polo Ralph Lauren’s women’s wear.
“I am delighted to welcome Michael back to Celine, a maison that he knows intimately,” Séverine Merle, Celine’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Michael’s vision, creative talent, together with his genuine nature and strong connection to Celine’s heritage make him a natural choice to continue to build a long-lasting success for the maison.”
The appointment will thrust Mr. Rider, who is in his 40s and has mostly worked behind the scenes since graduating from Brown University, into the spotlight. Though Celine, which is owned by LVMH, is relatively small compared to other brands in the luxury conglomerate’s portfolio, like Dior and Louis Vuitton, it is known for commanding attention, drawing strong opinions and being a popular label among celebrities.
Mr. Rider’s move to Celine is a sort of Parisian homecoming: Starting in 2008, he spent a decade as the brand’s design director, a job he began under Phoebe Philo, Celine’s former artistic director. Though Mr. Rider’s appointment makes him one of the rare American designers leading brands owned by LVMH, the world’s largest luxury company, he is not the first American to head the nearly 80-year-old French brand: Michael Kors oversaw design at Celine from 1997 to 2004.
Since 2018, Mr. Rider has helped push Ralph Lauren’s Polo label back into the luxury space through collections mixing luxurious suede overcoats and leather handbags with timeworn hallmarks like madras sundresses and brass-button blazers. Whether Mr. Rider will bring this distinctly American sensibility to Celine remains to be seen, but certainly his work for Polo has differed greatly from Mr. Slimane’s for Celine.
Mr. Slimane, who joined Celine in 2018, has been credited for bringing fresh life and new growth to the label. Industry analysts have estimated that, during his tenure, Mr. Slimane helped take the brand from annual sales of slightly less than 1 billion euros to around 2.5 billion euros.
Though now in his 50s, Mr. Slimane, a native Parisian, has always demonstrated a preternatural grasp for clothes befitting wispy 20-somethings. That demographic was reflected in recent campaigns for Celine, which featured Gen-Z celebrities like Kaia Gerber and Lalisa Manobal, who is better known as Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink.
Mr. Slimane himself arrived at the brand as a veritable fashion-world celebrity. Mr. Rider, by comparison, has largely skirted the limelight. He doesn’t appear to have a public Instagram account, and few photos of him could be found online before a portrait was circulated with news of his appointment. If Celine intends to keep its grip on pop culture, Mr. Rider will likely have to venture beyond the atelier.
Mr. Slimane’s collections were known for imbuing elements of glam rock and grunge into Celine’s DNA through kicky jumbo-size jeans, pinched suits, cocooning, stolen-from-granny overcoats and spangly glam-rock blouses — worn on the runway by women and men alike. He also expanded the brand’s output, adding men’s wear, a perfume line and a couture collection to its offerings. And Mr. Slimane sold a lot of accessories, helping boost the brand’s bottom line. At Celine’s marble-and-glass shops, his rectangular leather purses and baseball caps were given prime real estate on the sales floor.
Mr. Slimane’s Celine echoed certain aesthetics of Dior Homme and Saint Laurent, labels he led earlier in his career and for which he designed razory suits, calf-vice skinny jeans and florid, Viper Room-ready accessories like reedy ties and wispy scarves.
When he was named as Celine’s artistic director, his appointment was met with many raised eyebrows. His aesthetic was quite a bit more raucous than that of Ms. Philo’s, whose assertive, sensual clothes for Celine were savored by urbane adult women. If her Celine appealed to chilly corporate commanders, Mr. Slimane’s was aimed squarely at the Strokes.
Mr. Slimane, who is known to be mercurial and a provocateur, immediately made his stamp on the brand by changing its name from Céline, as it had been under Ms. Philo, to the accent-free Celine. He continued to demonstrate a go-my-own-way audacity by nixing certain editors from his shows and releasing collections seemingly at whim, many of which were presented in high-production videos set in locales like the American southwest and Saint-Tropez.
As for where Mr. Slimane lands next, many of the industry’s self-appointed oracles believe there were clues in his last few collections for Celine, which had a potent nouveau ladies-who-lunch air that to some conjured the aesthetic of another French brand — Chanel — which is currently without a top designer.
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