Former Celine designer Phoebe Philo is making a comeback! Her eponymous label, backed by LVMH, will drop a new collection this month – and fans can’t wait for her signature quiet luxury style

Oct 20 , 2023

Former Celine creative director Phoebe Philo is returning to the fashion world with a new collection by her eponymous label. Photo AFP

The former Celine creative director quadrupled sales at the French luxury brand to an impressive US$846 million per year, and #oldceline trended on Instagram after she left in 2018

The designer is dropping 150 new clothing pieces and accessories on October 30, and the news has already prompted preloved platform Vestiaire Collective to release an exclusive edit of Celine pieces

People who work in fashion pride themselves on being cool, calm and collected. And yet when news broke in 2021 that Phoebe Philo was set to return to the style sphere with an eponymous label, the reaction was anything but understated.

Chinese star Faye Wong and Celine’s creative director Phoebe Philo pose together at Celine’s 2014 autumn/winter fashion show in Beijing, China, in May 2014. Photo: SCMP Archives

Women love Philo – in fact, if you ask industry insiders which designer they would most like to dress them (not a model on a shoot or a celebrity they’re styling, but themselves) at least half will probably say Philo. And for 17 years, they had plenty of opportunities to buy her clothes, first at Stella McCartney and then at Celine.

But when Philo left the French label in 2018, her followers were bereft and the market for her former collections skyrocketed. (Tagging yourself in #oldceline became the ultimate Instagram flex.)

Céline looks designed by Phoebe Philo during her tenure at the French label. Photo: Celine

“Phoebe Philo’s laid-back luxe style gave women the comfort and ease they had been longing for,” explains fashion historian Hannah Rochelle. “What she wore to take her bow on the catwalk at Celine was as instrumental in shaping trends as the clothes on the models themselves. After she teamed Adidas Stan Smiths – originally designed in the mid 1960s – with a roll neck and slim black trousers in 2010, the tennis shoe became a stalwart trend with women for the following decade. As did tucking one’s long hair into the aforementioned roll neck.”

After years of male creative directors making clothes that looked fantastic on a catwalk or in a magazine, but which were not always easy to wear in day-to-day life, the British designer prioritised pieces one wanted to buy the next day. “What women loved about her work at Celine was that she was clearly designing with herself in mind, and who wouldn’t want to look as casually chic as Phoebe Philo?” asks Rochelle.

British fashion designer Phoebe Philo acknowledges the audience at the end of the Celine 2015 spring/summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show, in September 2014, in Paris. Photo: AFP

This translated into instant commercial success, and by the time Philo’s tenure at Celine came to an end, she had quadrupled sales to an impressive €800 million (US$846 million) per year.

A Celine luggage bag from resale website Vestiaire Collective. Photo: Vestiaire Collective

Interestingly, the look she pioneered was never showy. She was known for her minimalist designs that hung perfectly – the beautifully cut trousers; the perfect jacket; the dream coat. But at the same time she elevated pieces like those Stan Smiths or like Birkenstocks (which she used in a fashionable way for the first time) into a whole new sphere.