Hedi Slimane and Celine release their SS24 menswear show that never was with ‘Delusional Daydream’ film.

Just this past July, Hedi Slimane cancelled his Celine Homme show just hours prior, leaving us to guess whether we will witness what the designer had created for the SS24 season. Deciding to cancel the show altogether, Slimane poured his creativity into creating one of his signature films, this time exploring the juxtapositions between the Opera in Monte Carlo and the theatre in Paris, drawing a parallel of the performance beaux-arts with ballet dancer Laurids Seidel.

Taking on the idea of having the show that never was, Celine’s SS24 menswear offering reaches into celebrating a pocket of inspiration that Hedi Slimane began exploring towards the end of lockdown, diving into New York’s growing alternative music scene and photographing artists, performers, clubbers alike. Inspired by featuring NYC artist Dash Snow back into one of his exhibitions in 2007, he rekindles the close creative partnership by enlisting them to create a series of original artworks special to the collection, featuring across Slimane’s “Delusional Daydream”.

The collection inspires its surroundings, shot in the La Gaîtê Lyrqique and Le Grand Rex in Paris, with essence of juxtaposition captured at the Opera Garnier in Monte Carlo, bringing forward an essence of 17th century French portraiture mixed with the hard underground sound of NYC and its effervescence. Featuring couture elements into his practice, embroidered satin and silk sashes act as a ceremonial element of bridging the past and the present into an amalgamation of time and seduction.

Looking back at his infamous language of black suiting first introduced during his Dior Homme days in the late 2000s, Slimane is bringing back “LE TAILLEUR” with a sharp sense of silhouette, bridging a Parisian sense of identity into a new era. As the collection closes into an architectural reference point of time, the Celine essence of a well-understood man also continues to echo into multiple layers of inspiration.

Explore the full film and SS24 collection by Hedi Slimane here: