Why Hedi Slimane Is Leaving Celine

For months, Celine designer Hedi Slimane has been engaged in a thorny contract negotiation with owner LVMH that could lead to the designer’s departure from the brand, sources familiar with the matter say.

Since LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault installed Slimane six years ago, the star designer has transformed Celine, launching menswear (leaning into his trademark skinny silhouette), perfume and, most recently, beauty, in addition to reconnecting its womenswear image to the house’s historic identity as a purveyor of leather goods that incarnate Parisian bourgeois style.

At first, sales dropped as Slimane pivoted sharply away from predecessor Phoebe Philo’s minimalist, arty look. But since the pandemic, Celine’s business has surged to record highs. While owner LVMH does not regularly disclose sales for individual brands, Celine’s revenues surpassed €2 billion ($2.1 billion) in 2023, the company told investors in January. The brand’s full-year results were likely closer to €2.5 billion, meaning it had surpassed Fendi to become LVMH’s third-largest fashion label, behind only Louis Vuitton and Dior, according to HSBC.

Despite the strong results, sources say Slimane may be on the way out, adding credence to a recent report by Miss Tweed saying Slimane is set to leave the brand. Representatives for LVMH and Celine declined to comment.

Slimane is a rare talent. Known as the industry’s best stylist, he has generated perfectly precise fashion images since his trendsetting turn at Dior Homme in the early 2000s, when he helped usher in a decade-long trend cycle with his skinny silhouette. His approach to branding and merchandising invokes the strategies of French fashion heavyweights, with ultra-consistent, minimalist art direction that echoes Karl Lagerfeld — especially when shooting Celine’s black-and-white campaigns himself — and commercial collections that blend street style and luxury à la Yves Saint Laurent.

“Hedi is a genius of marketing, product and merchandising. He knows how to create that jacket, that shoe,” said Alice Bouleau, partner at executive search firm Sterling International. “It’s not overly intellectual; it’s not as subtle as what Phoebe was doing, but he really grasped the essence of what this brand was about.”

Slimane has put in place a commercially potent template for Celine with his ultra-refined, pared-back approach to art direction and campaign photography.
Slimane has put in place a commercially potent template for Celine with his ultra-refined, pared-back approach to art direction and campaign photography. (Celine)
But Slimane’s considerable talent has come with financial and creative demands to match.

In addition to commanding what’s understood to be a historically high salary for a designer, he’s also notorious for seeking royalties on all manner of creative output from campaign images to perfume formulas and more.

A true auteur despite his commercial savvy, Slimane expects complete creative control over a broad sweep of subjects — not just what goes in collections, but when and how they are shown, as well as to whom, and the environment in which they are sold.

That can lead to big results and fast, but only when the investment dollars are flowing freely. Since Slimane joined Celine, teams have spent countless hours, and company funds, ferrying samples back and forth to his home in St. Tropez, where he regularly holes up. Projects often reach an advanced stage before getting axed by the reclusive Slimane, creating frustration and high turnover in senior teams.

Shows and media can also be a sticking point. The brand has largely eschewed in-person runway shows in favour of fashion films that take months and millions of dollars to shoot. These are then released online without warning, limiting opportunities for editorial coverage (and, ultimately, visibility with consumers). When Slimane does stage an in-person show, influential guests are often absent. In addition to favouring off-calendar presentations at moments when editors and influencers are not around, since 2021 the brand has outright boycotted Vogue and its sister publications at Condé Nast in protest of the company’s cost-cutting move to oust regional editors-in-chief, including his longtime friend and collaborator Emmanuelle Alt, formerly editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris.

VIA BOF WRITTEN BY ROBERT WILLIAMS – https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/can-celine-work-without-hedi-slimane/

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#fashion #hedislimane #celine

but yeah basically bof have been like heavily covering the fact that Adis saman is like leaving Seline um so they’ve had two big articles that I can remember one was like called the other side of Seline where they talk about reasons why Adis San is leaving Seline they talked about things like uh you know the management him having issues with the management because he’s very difficult to work with and he always wants things a certain way and all that sort of stuff so there’s like issues there um so that’s kind of like one thing that they mentioned and they said that he has too much creative control like he wants to control every single facet yeah but what are other people saying uh some people are just saying that oh they want to see him leave Seline and then obviously there’s people I personally liked his time at Seline I actually you know what it’s funny that they don’t like that he has too much creative control cuz I love that he had too much creative control like I can talk about iseline for a while and it’s not even cuz people see it as like Tik Tok aesthetic but that’s not I just see Parisian Chic all over it to be fair but even like down to the stores they he re he renovated the London store right um when he took over Seline and he has this amazing artwork he commissioned all these like really obscure like you know artists and sculptors in places like Africa and Latin America and all this stuff to like make these sculptures in the store and like has all this interesting art and architecture and it’s so interesting and even down to like the perfume line he just like made his own perfume line and Seline which I actually love all the perfumes that he makes to be fair I think everything that he did at SC but I think you can only do that when you have all this creative control I even think at one point he was even shooting the campaigns yeah especially the white ones okay no cuz I thought you were saying what the timeline is saying I like I I didn’t know like it was just that one him having creative control I thought people like Seline like people just didn’t like the way that the runway scenes were shot but I’ve not seen anyone dislike what happened at Seline so is it the fact that Bernard arold or the Seline CEO because I don’t think Bernard Arno is like that deep into it but the Seline CEO doesn’t like the amount of creative control it is so is it like a difference between the executive team and the creative team I think it’s more of like a power struggle more than anything else I think because he has so much creative control there’s things that they want him to do differently that he’s not doing because once again he has to cre control he has the power and he has the value and that’s what um that is what yeah he was a professional photographer he was that’s what that’s what the creative directors are they they have that lvmh so that to me at least what it seems like is that that is a executive branch thing based on the sine um seite not necessarily based on his own um or should I say him and Berard him and upper management so on and so forth right because in reality that is everything that um lvmh wants like if yeah this is also this is true there was a rumor that apparently you wanted to move HQ to Sano pay yeah which was which actually didn’t make any sense it makes yeah it makes no sense it literally makes no sense logistical sense you know but this the thing right like when when they these um games are played on the highest level considering oh yeah he gets like millions and bonuses as well I swear and I don’t I’m not too sure about that to be fa I don’t know about well at least that’s what somebody said I well this the thing that that was a rumor as well maybe um so I would have to sign can you hear me yeah yeah we can hear yeah I just wanted to say yeah I just wanted to say that I’ve I don’t see where the major problem was considering the consumer lights of and he that’s what I’m going to go on to reply to and um yeah so for me it’s just like a discrepancy between him and DC sweet but yeah you got Michael okay bear in mind this is all hearsay but the things I’ve been hearing is it’s stuff when they say stuff like too much creative control they mean like well one like we’ve said on one hand he has all these talents and skills that he’s able to provide which is what you want but then it’s stuff like because he’s able to provide all these talents and skills man is trying to change the logistics apparently so it’s stuff like he wants to work out of his home in Paris and design out of his home in Paris when logistically it makes more sense to for him to design at the head office or design at the design studio and then they have to ship samples to his house rather than doing everything at the studio and stuff like that that’s the kind of stuff I’ve been hearing and apparently that’s just been difficult to work with because they’re like it just doesn’t make sense for efficiency and for Logistics and things like that that’s why the Sano pay thing was quite silly actually like move the head office to Sano pay logistically that’s just a disaster just stuff like that that’s I’ve heard there a lot of stuff like that here’s my thing Grant people start saying you’re hard to work with when they want to destroy your character in public but don’t want to say too that’s true also that is true also if we’re only like that is how it starts like that’s true yeah I think both both think on me to uh shout out toan for the Super Chat I really appreciate it uh I just want to say thank you for continuing to bring authentic point of view to Fashion from the financial and creative sides also FYI America is in a recession I live in Cali and I’m a 30-year-old Millennial and it’s tough yeah it’s it’s tough out here in these these times it’s yeah it’s crazy I mean you live in Cali though so like Cali is expensive like whoa Cy is like yeah I thought London was expensive till I started going to America traveling to America and I went to places like LA and New York and I was like oh wow London is all of a sudden affordable even though it’s still not but compared to like Cali and yeah it’s insane so I can only imagine I think his fans are fans of his stuff follow him wherever he goes because of the consistency also yeah true there is like an aesthetic consistency like even like the teddy bombers that he did at s he like brought them to Seline like most of the things he did at Sal he like brought them the boots he brought them to Seline like the even the whole themes of like the whole rock and roll VI is same thing did we not give enough credit to Eddie or yeah I think he’s done it three times now and it’s kind of but like I said I I like what he did he had those few Tik tocky collections that are a bit strange but for the most part what I’ve seen is just this like Parisian Chic meets meets rock and roll aesthetic like that’s all I’ve seen him do at at Seline it’s more of like a it’s like an old an older Paris lady mixed with the San that he was doing before merge that together that’s his Seline so yeah like my my stuff is like like when when the directors doing really well which is why I don’t get when people chat about mgc right is cuz when the creative directors doing really well like you want them to be as happy as possible obviously if you’re overdoing it you’re overdoing it right um but yeah in general him like taking ownership of it shows that there can be a cohesion in the brand and it can be very very successful underneath it and if you know you pay him the right amount let’s say or you give certain demands or that he’s able to compromise um yeah then you know there’s value in that like that’s mgc that’s Kim Jones that’s JW Anderson you know hopefully that’s Eddie but you know what I’m saying yeah I’m goingon to cuz I found one of the articles that bf did on um Adis Simon Seline um so this is one of them for example canceling work without Alis lean after growing the Brand’s annual sales to nearly €2.5 billion EUR the star designer has been locked in a thorny contract negotiation with the owner of lvmh that could lead to his exit sources say bof breaks down what slan brought to Seline and what his departure could mean so this is like a really good article to read um we could read through it if you want okay uh says Paris four month Seline designer ad Simon has been engaged in a thorny contract negotiation with the owner of a MIT that could lead to the designer’s departure from the brand source is familiar with the matter say since lvmh chairman Bernard arol installed slimon six years ago the star designer has transformed Seline launching Men’s Wear leaning into his trademark skinny silhouette perfume and most recently Beauty in addition to reconnecting its woman’s wear image to The house’s historic identity as a of leather goods that incarnate Parisian bis style at first sales dropped as San pivoted sharply away from predecessor Phoebe pho’s minimalist Arty look but since the pandemic seline’s business has surged to record highs while owner alv H does not regularly disclose sales for individual Brands seline’s Revenue surpassed two billion EUR in 2023 the company told investors in January the Brand’s full year results were likely closer to €2.5 billion EUR meaning it had surpass Fendi to become lv’s third largest fashion label behind only Louis Vuitton and Dior according to HSBC despite the strong results sources say slan might be on the way out adding Credence to a recent report by Miss Tweed saying Zan is set to leave the brand representatives for alv MIT and Seline declined to comment so before we read on what do you guys think about that bit that’s very interesting um the fact that it’s the third biggest brand at LV H is huge to be fair yeah that’s really just behind elv and Dior that’s huge that’s big news that’s bigger it’s bigger than but I can see how that could be because like the perfume line I is honestly so good um and people that don’t care about I can only imagine because they’re really good like I have they’re good I don’t know I don’t know that many people outside of fashion that that buy into it me personally that buy into what sorry the perfume what the perfume I think a lot of people buy into the perfume like on YouTube like perfume yeah like I I follow the perfume side of YouTube and a lot of them talk about the CED fragrances especially nightclubbing reptile okay they don’t talk about parade as much Black Tie they talk about black tie a lot all right um so those fragrances in the fragrance Community they’re huge all right let me get my YouTuber on real quick oh yeah I have I have them actually funny enough I have them I going fraghead mode yeah bro for real listen black hey I’m I’m a fraghead what can I say black TI is easily one of my favorite fragrances AB black TI is black TI is quite sweet right yeah yeah quite sweet the third biggest and um he’s highly talented highly skilled and he Tak there’s nothing nothing really much to say however it being like the third biggest and it can probably still grow even more like having him leave is a massive detriment and then them saying what was it that they said um I mean okay I I’ll read this part article cuz they add some more context and then we’ll pause again so it says but Simon’s considerable Talent has come with financial and creative demands to match in addition to commanding What’s Understood to be a historically High salary for a designer he’s also notorious for seeking royalties on all manner of creative output from campaign images to perfume formulas and more a true a despite his commercial Savvy San expects complete creative control over a broad broad sweep of subjects not just what goes in collections but when and how they are shown as well as to whom and the environment in which they are sold that can lead to Big results and fast but only when the investment dollars are flowing freely since the man join Seline teams have spent countless hours and Company funds fing samples back and forth to his home in Sano where he regularly holds up projects often reach an advanced stage before getting axed by the reclusive slimon creating frustration and high turnover in senior teams so what do you guys think about that give him what he to be fair give him what in the in the what he want is transport even that expensive to a brand like this probably not the royalties is probably more the royalties is probably more like w royalties on the campaigns and the perfumes and stuff another call back here to of our earlier conversations remember when we were talking about how creative directors don’t have any control and sometimes it’s the executives the business people telling them what to do and then you know the designers can’t say no and just have to make a collection that they don’t want and then now we have Edy asking for Creative control to STFU and to let me do my thing yep I can see how that can cause some fr between the executive side of Seline and him now especially because he said he said STFU and he’s actually pulling in numbers he actually can back it up listen I mean he can look at the number. million and what do we know about a creative that’s able to back their chat and actually chat as well y listen but what I don’t is if if if man’s making you money like why do you want to cut him cuz he’s making too much money for himself maybe because obviously most brands don’t have I don’t think any other brand has a creative director that’s you know kind of helping to create fragrance lines for a house normally the perfume and the and the brand they’re so separate like Dior what mgc and Kim Jones are doing versus the your fragrances they’re so far apart whereas like Seline you have Adis San like literally curating his own fragrances and then collecting royalties on the sales of them which is good for him to be fair for negotiating that by the way I will say what he’s doing would be unprecedented if they get it that down in in Inc and if he does do that then it will set a new predent for what designers are supposed to be I I just think I don’t know I just think if they if they did drop him and then their sales dropped for four quarters eight quarters it’s like well what did we do this all for because obviously if they drop him they now have to get a new creative director in let’s say that takes two quarters then we have to adjust to the creative like change that’s another two quarters minimum unless they brought in some Mega star which I mean they could but I don’t I don’t see it happening Caleb I’m with you Caleb I’m with you that’s literally why they hired him these Brands make no sense they knew he would come and do things his own way if if they if if they fire Adis saman or he leaves it’s going to be a caring moment I promise you it’s going to be like a they think they can do better with someone else and then it flops that’s literally what’s going to happen I’ll be I’ll be sorry that’s literally what’s going to happen and I’ll be even realer and say I didn’t expect this I didn’t expect him to be doing this well Asel bar this is actually true uh LC because sometimes these things it’s not even about the efficiency of the brand it’s about politics and yeah the CEO must be mad that he has so much power because obviously it leaves less room for the CEO to operate if ADI is involved in everything exactly and getting paid for everything involved in everything exctly and collecting royalties too the the getting paid for everything is a different scenario though however that’s bunkers like cuz getting royalties versus getting paid is two different things because they could give him the equivalent however he wants possibly per well he has both cuz in this article they just said that he he’s demanding on the higher salaries for this the thing right you can like you can demand a salary that’s mad high but that’s still a salary now imagine you were working at Vogue magazine and you were like yo I want one p for every Vogue sold yeah that what’s interesting is what what I find interesting is the words they use scroll up I swear they said he gets royalties on campaigns what does that actually mean let me see let me see let me see okay go let’s see so yeah photographers licensed their images out and then if you have like usage rights on them and then you know then you get you know but that would he’s also notorious for seeking royalties on all manner of creative output from campaign images to perfume formulas and more so there’s even other stuff too on top of that I want to interview this guy man every the more the more I read I’m a fan of well I already was but like he’s playing chess not Checkers is this true is my is my first thing is this true or is this what people are speculating because the language is quite particular in ter I mean I’m not being I’m not being biased but from what I know working at bof versus other magazines I’ve worked at their research process before an article comes out is really rigorous so I can imagine they have a strong source and don’t forget lvmh owns bof so some they can get inside information too just saying I just want to say that the language is teering though the language language is a bit the language is a bit mad it almost reads slightly hit P3 I will say like the the wording is leaning slightly on hit pie but I I personally think he’s playing chess not Checkers you know you know I respect everything that you have to say about B I’m just saying that the language that they’re using here just like I can smell it I can I can too I can just and it it look SW like it’s you know they’re trying to do the best but yeah words matter right if you say someone demands this and royalties and if it’s written that way it reads like what an unreasonable person asking for too much right but there’s a way you can write it where it’s like it reads more like oh this is what he was asking for type of thing rather than something he’s demanding almost the the energy of the way it’s written is like almost unjustly almost um not saying that was the intention of a writer that’s just how it reads but let’s see what else is what else is interesting um this is actually true with the the runway shows um shows and media can also be a sticking point the brand has largely issued imperson Runway shows in favor of fashion films that take months and millions of dollars to shoot okay that’s a bit weird because most fashion shows take millions of dollars to do but anyway uh these are then released online without warning limiting opportuni for editorial coverage and ultimately visibility with consumers I’ll pause there and say I think what they’ve been doing with that is a good thing because because Seline shows kind of come out randomly and they happen so randomly I think a lot of attention is on Seline because it doesn’t it’s not in it’s not lost in the sea of when all the other shows are happening um I find to be fair the way they really weird the way they that is really weird they’re making it sound like making a fashion film is more expensive than hosting yeah they said that take months and millions of dollars to shoot almost most campaigns for these Brands take cost millions of dollars to shoot these people literally book out um the Eiffel Tower for a day just so that they can shoot do you know how expensive that is when you see these campaigns they’re dancing in front of the Eiffel Tower those cost Millions so to be honest that’s neither here nor there um he said when San does stage an in-person show influential guests are often absent in addition to favoring off- calendar presentations at moments when editors and influencers are not around since 2021 the brand has outright boycotted Vogue and its sister Publications at cond in protest of the company’s cost cutting move to OU Regional editors and chief including his longtime friend and collaborator Emmanuel alt formerly editorinchief of verg Paris yo shout out to Addy Simon he’s sending on business he said he said you’re going to ask Regional editors including my friend I don’t want any of the condas people around and he’s still making money and to the point where he’s built the company to top three in the lvmh stable despite all of that that’s insane I just want to take note with the way that that reads yeah it reads it reads mad though they’re making it seem like cuz they’re almost making it seem like um I guess to be fair to be fair to the other side I think that I think that obviously you want condas to cover your shows obviously it’s a lot of press you’re missing out on however I think that adds an air of like Mystique to the brand that’s almost good that’s exactly the word I was thinking about not every time it is does a brand need all this press like this is why people love Mar mael because he was like really kind of obscure and kind of like you know hard to understand and no one really knows where he is and all that sort of stuff that adds to the law of the brand it’s kind of similar in this case where it kind of adds to especially now that you know I found out that it’s because they asked and got rid of one of the roles that his friend was in that’s insane he’s like yeah I don’t I don’t care con has be damned to be fair Alis San has always has always had a bad relationship with editors I remember when uh Robin Gan had a bad review for Adis Sam when he was still at Saron then he banned her from shows I think that’s also happened to Kathy horen and it’s also happened to quite a few other journalists actually who are quite um you know quite well known this YouTube channel runs on your support if you want to support the channel you can subscribe to my patreon you’ll gain access to exclusive content that includes everything for my patreon podcast where I give a behind thes scenes insights into the fashion industry as well as a fashion book club where I 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