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No rush, targeted and measured ads, as in his style. But finally, for the long-awaited return of Phoebe Philo, already announced in 2021, there is a date: Monday 30 October. On that day, the collection designed by the British designer, former creative director of Celine and away from the catwalks for six years, will be available for purchase on the phoebephilo.com platform, for which registrations had already started in July. Meanwhile, she doesn’t offer any posts, but the brand’s new Instagram account, based in London, already has almost 280 thousand followers.
Phoebe Philo’s collection should include clothing and accessories, from jewelry to footwear to glasses, for a total of approximately 150 products. And according to the specialized newspaper Wwd, the protagonist of the brand’s new launch campaign will be Daria Werbowy, also recently chosen by Gucci for the communication of the new creative direction signed by Sabato De Sarno.
Supporter, with a minority share, of the designer’s project is LVMH, to which Celine (led today by Hedi Slimane, who also wanted to remove the original emphasis from the brand) also belongs. «I have had a very constructive and creative professional relationship with LVMH for many years – Philo declared in an interview with WWD in 2021, announcing his return -. It is therefore a natural progression for us to reconnect on this new project. I greatly appreciated the discussion on new ideas with Bernard Arnault and Delphine Arnault and I am excited to start this new adventure with their support.”
The “philophiles”, as the fans of Phoebe Philo’s minimal but intense style were defined, had seen the now 50-year-old designer say goodbye to fashion in 2017, at the height of her success with Celine. She arrived at the helm in 2008 and managed to rouse him from a long torpor to make him one of the most desirable of those years. However, that farewell was motivated by her choice to dedicate more time to her family and her children. A choice that she had actually already made in 2006, when she left the creative direction of Chloé, a role that she had assumed five years earlier and inherited from Stella McCartney (to launch, as she would later do, her own brand of she). Even when she took up Arnault’s offer for Celine, Philo accepted only on the condition that she could continue to live between Paris (home of the brand) and her hometown, London. Where she now she, finally, she can reside in complete freedom.
Meanwhile, in view of the long-awaited return, the pre-loved fashion platform Vestiaire Collective offers a selection of iconic garments from the Phoebe Philo years at Celine, curated by La Fred Touch, collector of “Old Céline” items. They record interesting data: the “likes” obtained by Celine articles on the platform rose to almost 250 thousand in July 2023, when registrations on the new brand’s platform opened. And today, Celine sunglasses are in first place as the most searched item on Vestiaire Collective in 2023, with the “Marta” model ranking as the best-selling item. And the Trapeze and Sangle bags, created in the Philo years, are still among the most desired.