Céline sees bright future catering to more sophisticated mainland clientele

The rush into China has been going for some time, but now the quieter, more austere luxury labels are increasingly making their presence felt.

Last week, it was the turn of French fashion house Céline. The brand staged a catwalk show of its autumn-winter 2014 collection on an abandoned oil tanker in Beijing's 751 D Park art district.

In the label's first runway event outside Paris, its creative director, Phoebe Philo, also presented several new pieces, created especially for the Beijing event, to the 550 VIP guests and celebrities such as Faye Wong and Na Ning.

"I wanted to approach the collection from the gut, for it to feel touched by human hands; wild, tender and strong," Philo says of the show, which included a series of new silk tops, scarves and handbags in special colours for Chinese customers.

The show explored Philo's signature interpretation of men's wardrobes but reinvented for women. The looks were strong, confident, with a focus on handcraft with feathered fabrics and frayed seams. Long swinging coats in interesting fabrications were a dominant feature, while bolts of colour were introduced in bright buttons, checks or gingham.

The sophisticated, cool elegance of Philo's Céline woman has been gaining traction on the mainland, where, for the most sophisticated customers, logo mania and conspicuous luxury has started to feel tired. Enter Céline, a brand that has nailed its cool, collected identity, positioning it as the go-to fashion brand for the thinking woman, embodying the opposite of fashion frivolity or the stylistic trappings of nouveau riche.

The mainland has become one of the top five markets for Céline, accounting for 10 per cent of its global sales, says CEO Marco Gobbetti as we talk in Beijing. Among its 90 stores, 20 are located in 14 cities across the mainland. The new additions are a store at the International Finance Square in Chengdu, which opened in April, and a flagship store at Plaza 66 in Shanghai, which is due to open later this year.