Celine

Michael Rider’s New Luggage softened the Phantom Luggage body and offered curved and straight front zips. The smile variation links Phoebe Philo’s bag system to the wave-like line of Céline Vipiana’s 1969 Mistral, making product construction the point of historical connection.

Michael Rider began work as Celine creative director in January 2025, assuming responsibility for fashion and product categories while image and communications remained outside his remit.

Brian Molloy styled Michael Rider’s opening Celine collections and campaigns, helping organise their layered dialogue between tailoring, sportswear, scarves and substantial accessories.

Kevin Tekinel became part of the image-direction structure supporting Michael Rider’s Celine, working across campaigns and communications outside the creative director’s product remit.

Charles Levai became part of the image-direction structure supporting Michael Rider’s Celine. The arrangement keeps campaign and communications direction distinct from Rider’s product remit.

Michael Rider returned to Celine with full creative responsibility for womenswear, menswear, leather goods, accessories and couture. His opening collections synthesise several house histories while separating product direction from image and communications.

Celine named Michael Rider as Hedi Slimane’s successor, effective early 2025. Rider’s earlier decade in Phoebe Philo’s studio made the appointment a return to the house as well as a change in leadership.

Celine announced Hedi Slimane’s departure on 2 October 2024, closing a tenure that had expanded the house into menswear, in-house fragrance, bespoke leather goods, beauty and a highly controlled retail-image system.

Celine announced its entry into cosmetics with Rouge Triomphe and a wider lipstick programme conceived by Hedi Slimane. The launch extended the 2019 fragrance system into make-up before his departure.

Celine introduced a bespoke leather-goods programme in which individual artisans produce made-to-order versions of house bags with optional precious-metal and gemstone details.

During pandemic restrictions, Celine shifted seasonal presentation into location-based films. The Dancing Kid, released in July 2020, treated digital youth culture and commissioned music as part of a new distribution format.

Celine announced eleven unisex fragrances and a dedicated Rue Saint-Honoré boutique, returning fragrance to an in-house programme after the Inter Parfums licence. Slimane directed the scents’ bottles, packaging and image.

Hedi Slimane presented Celine’s first dedicated menswear-only runway on 20 January 2019, formalising a category included in his appointment remit and supported by a new tailoring atelier.

Hedi Slimane sketched Le 16 on his first day at Celine, naming the top-handle bag for the house’s 16 rue Vivienne headquarters. Its curved flap, turn-lock and structured leather body introduced a new accessory code at the beginning of his tenure.

Slimane returned Celine’s interlocking-C emblem to monogram canvas and leather goods, turning a founder-era mark into a central contemporary product code. The revival linked bags, accessories and store image to a history that predated the logo change.

Slimane introduced a global retail language combining stone, concrete, reclaimed oak, brass, furniture and a curated body of site-specific contemporary art. The Art Project made architecture and collecting part of Celine’s public image.

Celine unveiled a revised 1960s-derived wordmark without the accent, reset its social channels and narrowed the spacing. The rebrand was paired with a renewed use of the historic Triomphe emblem rather than a simple rejection of house history.

LVMH announced Hedi Slimane as Celine’s artistic, creative and image director on 21 January 2018, with his tenure beginning in February. The expanded mandate covered womenswear, menswear, couture, fragrance and the house’s complete public image.

Celine began its first substantial e-commerce rollout in 2018 after years of deliberately limited digital distribution. The change preceded Hedi Slimane’s first collection and altered how the house’s products and image circulated.

As artistic, creative and image director, Hedi Slimane controlled Celine across fashion, photography, stores and communications. He established menswear, expanded fragrance and beauty, revived Triomphe and built a global art-led retail system.

LVMH announced that Phoebe Philo would leave Celine in January 2018 after completing her mission at the house. Pre-Fall 2018, released in May, became her final collection.

Séverine Merle became Celine chief executive on 1 April 2017, succeeding Marco Gobbetti. Her tenure spans the transition from Phoebe Philo to Hedi Slimane and Michael Rider, including the development of e-commerce and the separation of product direction from image under Rider.

Celine established its Paris headquarters at 16 rue Vivienne in 2014. The address later supplied the name for Hedi Slimane’s 16 bag and became the setting for Michael Rider’s first runway show.

Introduced with Pre-Fall 2014, the Belt bag used a pared-back tote body, projecting side straps and a central belt-like closure. The design balanced capacity with a controlled graphic front.

Daniel Lee joined Celine in 2012 and rose to director of ready-to-wear before leaving in 2018. The tenure placed him inside the Philo-era studio system before his creative-director appointments at Bottega Veneta and Burberry.

The Trio cross-body joined three slim zipped pouches into a modular bag that could be used together or separated. Its flat construction and light hardware condensed the Philo-era emphasis on function into a small accessory.

The Phantom enlarged and softened the Luggage system, opening the sides and increasing capacity while retaining its recognisable front construction. The variation made scale and collapse part of Celine’s leather-goods vocabulary.

The Luggage bag joined a structured tote body to flared gussets, substantial top handles and a curved zip panel. Its Spring 2011 Juergen Teller campaign with Daria Werbowy and Stella Tennant turned the design into the most visible early product of Philo’s Celine.

The Classic Box bag used a compact rectangular body, flap and restrained metal clasp to make construction and leather finish carry the design. Its controlled geometry translated the Philo-era wardrobe into a long-running accessory form.

Drew Henry interned at Celine during his studies in 2011 and joined Phoebe Philo’s design team full-time after completing the Central Saint Martins MA Fashion programme in 2014. The record establishes studio participation through 2018 without assigning individual collection authorship.

Drew Henry began at Celine as an intern under Phoebe Philo in 2011 and joined the design team full-time after graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2014. He moved to JW Anderson in 2018.

Camilla Nickerson worked as a recurring stylist around Phoebe Philo’s Celine collections and image-making. The surviving credits support collaboration but not a formal in-house title.

Juergen Teller’s direct campaign and lookbook photography became a recurrent part of Phoebe Philo’s Celine image, from early accessories through the Joan Didion campaign and the final Pre-Fall 2018 collection.

The Trapeze bag combined a rigid top-handle body with expandable winged gussets. Developed within the accessories team led by Johnny Coca under Phoebe Philo, the design made functional expansion its identifying silhouette.

Johnny Coca led accessories design within Phoebe Philo’s Celine, directing teams responsible for bags and shoes and helping develop the Trapeze. His departure for Mulberry in 2014 carried the house’s accessory expertise into a wider creative-director career.

The Cabas reduced the tote to a supple leather body, open top and minimal external hardware. Introduced among the first Philo-era accessories, it placed material, capacity and repeated use ahead of overt branding.

LVMH named Marco Gobbetti chief executive of Celine alongside Phoebe Philo’s appointment. Gobbetti managed distribution, stores and business operations while Philo directed product and image, creating the executive and creative partnership behind the house’s subsequent expansion.

Celine announced Phoebe Philo as its next creative director on 4 September 2008, with an effective start in October. The announcement separated her appointment from Ivana Omazic’s final presentation and the later public debut of Philo’s rebuilt product line.

Michael Rider joined Celine as design director of ready-to-wear and worked between Paris and Phoebe Philo’s London studio for almost a decade. The position made him a senior contributor to the house’s modern wardrobe before his 2025 return as creative director.

Celine built its design headquarters in a Georgian townhouse on Cavendish Square after Phoebe Philo made a London base a condition of her return. The structure allowed a senior international team to work across London and Paris.

Phoebe Philo rebuilt Celine from a London design studio, aligning reduced ready-to-wear, functional leather goods and a controlled image system. Her senior team and recurring collaborators helped make the period a durable reference for contemporary womenswear.

Ivana Omazic moved from consultant to head of design, aligning sportswear, footwear and leather goods around a contemporary women’s wardrobe. Her tenure ended with the Spring/Summer 2009 presentation before Phoebe Philo assumed the role.

Ivana Omazic joined Celine as a design consultant in April 2005 after leaving Miu Miu. The preliminary role established her relationship with the house before her promotion to head of design on 6 July.

Celine announced Roberto Menichetti’s departure on 25–26 May 2005 after two collections and began another search for design leadership. The departure confirmed the post-Kors period as a sequence of brief and distinct recalibrations.

Roberto Menichetti succeeded Michael Kors and presented two collections that moved from graphic reduction towards more conservative tailoring. His brief appointment exposed the difficulty of resetting Celine’s fashion identity while maintaining its leather-goods business.

Michael Kors presented his final Celine collection on 4 March 2004 before concentrating on his own company. His exit closed the house’s first sustained outsider-led ready-to-wear period.

Celine confirmed in March 2003 that Michael Kors would leave after completing the Autumn/Winter 2004 collection. The extended timetable separated the public succession announcement from his final runway one year later.

The Poulbot and Macadam bags extended Michael Kors’s Celine accessory programme through recognisable shapes and repeated monogram surfaces. They belong to a period when leather goods were becoming a stronger commercial and visual counterpart to the runway.

The Boogie bag became a major leather-goods success during Michael Kors’s Celine tenure. Its compact rectangular body and short handles aligned the house’s accessory business with the direct, polished sportswear of the runway.

Celine signed a worldwide fragrance agreement with Inter Parfums SA covering development, manufacture and distribution. The licence ran until 2011, after which fragrance returned to in-house control.

Celine reacquired its Japanese franchise and secured a flagship at 36 avenue Montaigne as Michael Kors relocated to Paris. The early-1998 transactions and the flagship’s October opening tightened direct control over two important retail markets.

Celine appointed Michael Kors to lead women’s ready-to-wear and contribute across product categories. His American sportswear, polished tailoring and accessory focus gave the LVMH-owned house a clearer international fashion position.

Céline Vipiana died in 1997 after remaining the house’s founder, designer and public figure through its transfer into LVMH. Her death closed the direct founder era as Michael Kors began the first sustained outsider-led ready-to-wear tenure.

Celine was integrated into LVMH in October 1996, nine years after Financière Agache’s acquisition. The distinction separates Arnault’s initial control from the house’s later place inside the luxury group.

Celine joined the French couture federation in 1995, placing the house more formally within the institutional structure of Paris fashion before its integration into LVMH.

Bernard Arnault appointed Peggy Huynh Kinh to modernise Celine and organise seasonal fashion and accessory collections. Her tenure established an artistic-director structure between the founder-led company and full LVMH ownership.

Bernard Arnault’s Financière Agache acquired Celine in July 1987. The transaction ended family control but preceded the house’s separate integration into LVMH in 1996.

Celine extended its retail network across European capitals and Asian markets, shifting the family company from a Paris-focused house towards an international luxury business.

Celine adopted the interlocking-C chain emblem later called Triomphe. The year is supported as probable, while the familiar Arc de Triomphe origin story remains house lore rather than independently documented design history.

Céline Vipiana’s Mistral bag used a wave-like front line that later supplied a historical reference for Michael Rider’s New Luggage. The design demonstrates that Celine’s leather-goods archive developed recognisable construction details before the Triomphe emblem became dominant.

Céline Vipiana introduced Couture Sportswear, moving Celine decisively into ready-to-wear through culottes, blouses, knitwear and coordinated separates designed for an active daily wardrobe.

Celine adopted a horse-and-carriage emblem reportedly found by Richard Vipiana in a handbook of early advertising art. Sources place its introduction in 1966 or 1967, so the event remains approximate while its role as the house identity before the interlocking-C mark is clear.

Celine opened a leather-goods factory in Florence, formalising the Italian manufacturing base behind its growing footwear and handbag categories.

Celine released Vent Fou, its first documented fragrance, adding scent to a business then organised around footwear, handbags and women’s accessories.

Gloves, handbags and other accessories extended Celine from footwear into a coordinated leather-goods system, making product breadth part of the house before its ready-to-wear launch.

Celine expanded beyond children’s shoes with women’s moccasins, establishing the adult footwear category that would support the house’s later accessories and ready-to-wear business.

Celine commissioned illustrator Raymond Peynet to develop a red elephant mascot for its children’s shoe packaging. Distributed with purchases, the image gave the young company a public identity before its later Sulky and interlocking-C emblems.

Richard Vipiana co-founded Celine with Céline Vipiana and managed the family business as it grew from made-to-measure children’s shoes into women’s fashion and leather goods. The surviving research supports his business role but not detailed individual product authorship.

Céline Vipiana co-founded Celine as a made-to-measure children’s shoe shop and directed its expansion into women’s footwear, leather goods, fragrance and ready-to-wear. She remained connected to the house through its transition from family control to LVMH ownership.