Everybody wants to be the Celine man
For spring/summer 27, in his debut standalone menswear show at Celine, Michael Rider’s multifaceted expression showed men a man they wanted to be, writes EE72 Fashion Critic Anders Christian Madsen.
Since his first shows for Celine last year, Michael Rider’s menswear has been a key component in his proposal. Within the character-driven sensibility that defines his collections, the boys have added an intrigue that captivates the curiosity. Soft but hard, sexy but sensual, romantic yet brooding, they capture the kind of contrasts that make clothes feel contemporary and cool; that make clothes covetable. So, Rider’s first standalone men’s show was a wanted and needed addition to a schedule that’s lost more than a few shows to co-ed stagings during women’s ready-to-wear.
As illustrated in those contrasts, Rider’s menswear is multifaceted. His show read like a stream of characters you might encounter on the streets of a capital city, albeit not all in the same area. They don’t necessarily belong to the same scenes, but Rider manages to unite his diverse personas in an expression that feels entirely coherent. Backstage, he gave credit to his team: “What unifies the mix is us. We’re the filter of what feels like Celine. We have a collective sense: we’re the customer; we make the things we want; we make the characters we want to be. It feels authentic,” he said.
The team and I are the filter of what feels like Celine. We have a collective sense: we’re the customer; we make the things we want; we make the characters we want to be. It feels authentic
Michael Rider, Celine
The process creates the aforementioned covetability, which – scrolling through Instagram captions post-show – appeals to real-life dressers as diverse as Rider’s characters. It isn’t that there’s “something for everyone,” because who wants that, but that the new Celine is creating a multifaceted character that many of us want to know or be. He’s showing us something new. A big part of what makes his Celine so coherent is the cast. Rider works closely with the talented casting director Samuel Ellis Scheinman, whom he’s known since they were teenagers. Because Scheinman is so interwoven in the creative process, you can feel how the duo constructs their characters long before casting calls go out.
The sensibility created by their collaboration tells of a genuine and almost voyeuristic interest in other humans, which is a nice feeling in a time when that isn’t always key to the global mentality. This time, they presented that worldview in an optical white set within the Tennis Club de Paris where a feel-good soundtrack including Terry Callier, Björk and what Rider called “just a jam session” added further character to a wardrobe that continuously shape-shifted before your eyes: from the tapered to the sculptural, with an electric sense of colour and pattern that seduced you as much as the regal and whimsical headpieces that crowned the looks.
“It’s not to knock anything else going on, but I dream of building something that has legs but that can also turn the page from a moment that some of us felt like had gotten flattened or pre-written,” Rider said. “The idea that it feels layered, and feels like the world around us, is part of the mission.” In more than one sense, it would appear fashion has a new favourite man.
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