Hedi Slimane is concerned with the theatrical aspect of fashion. He is fascinated by how a garment can be manipulated—pushed, pulled, and positioned—until it becomes more than just seams, cloth, or fabric. Until it transforms into an image, an idea.

Slimane's focus on fashion as theatre is so strong that throughout his latest Men's Fall/Winter film for CELINE, I forgot I was watching a fashion show. The footage included CELINE-branded helicopters landing on a barren Mojave Desert Road, sun-drenched dunes and charming cowboy riding horseback across the mountain region. Throughout the fourteen-and-a-half-minute film, I was reminded of Slimane's ability to world build to the nth degree.

Slimane titled the collection, ‘Symphonie Fantastique', as an ode to the first-ever psychedelic symphony composed by Hector Berlioz. The designer discovered the Symphonie Fantastique at the age of 11 and became passionate about the romantic string-heavy piece. Written in 1830 during the Romantic period, the symphony is described as an "immense instrumental composition of a new genre."

The show notes explain, “Those sounds you're hearing come from the the first musical description ever made of a trip, written one hundred thirty odd years before the Beatles. He called it 'Symphonie Fantastique', or 'Fantastic Symphony', and fantastic it is, in every sense of the word.”

In this same sense, Slimane’s collection can be regarded as ‘fantastic.’ From the black pleated cigarette pants to the three-button blazers, top hats, silk ties, pinstriped shirts, embossed boots, and sequined gold cape coat, each piece is magnetic, seductive, sharp. 

Together with the garments, the cinematic nature of the production leaves us wondering whether these men are cowboys, spies, agents or provocateurs. Are they wandering wildly or on a mission? They seem to have no one tracking them or telling them where to go. Like Slimane himself, these men can do whatever they please. To what would presumably be Berlioz’s delight, they march to the tune of their own violin.