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Celine and the Art of Creativity
Hedi Slimane pays tribute to sculptors with a collection of wearable art jewellery
F ashion designer Hedi Slimane’s inventiveness reaches far beyond the catwalk. As Celine’s creative director, he celebrates modern masters and spotlights contemporary artists in his collections.
Under the Celine Artist Jewellery Program – launched in 2020 as a tribute to 20th-century artists who have shaped Slimane’s practice – the idea of fusing fashion and artistic creation was reprised with a limited-edition “wearable art” collection.
The first release was a pendant dedicated to French sculptor César, famous for his compressions of old vehicles. Like a miniature version of his compacted structures, the pendant has a textured surface that alludes to industrial recycling, as if flattened by a hydraulic press.
The most recent piece, released in November, pays homage to late American sculptor Louise Nevelson. It features a large wooden pendant adorned with undulating metal shards, issued in either silver or gold vermeil. Limited to 50 pieces for each metal and signed by the Nevelson Foundation, it is a scaled down version of a pendant worn by the artist.
It was developed with the help of her granddaughter Maria Nevelson. “The metal strips are inspired by clothes pegs, which my grandmother would pull apart,” Maria says. “This dismantling took away their domestic, everyday purpose and allowed her to explore shape in a simple and accessible manner, paving the way towards the more complex process of abstraction.”
Nevelson’s art explores the connection between spatial systems and spiritual thought; she is perhaps best remembered for her large three-dimensional collages made from found objects. They were painted in strong singular colours, and her jewellery designs are just as symbolic of the unifying order of her work.
A selection of Celine’s artist collaborations
Christian Marclay
The Swiss-American audio-visual artist added Pop flair to Slimane’s first Celine show.
The SS19 collection was suffused with his bold comic-strip patterns,
which riff off rock ’n’ roll typography and Roy Lichtenstein artworks.
David Kramer
Slimane enlisted the New York artist to embellish Celine’s SS20 menswear pieces with his signature tongue-in-cheek slogans,
such as “There’s No Irony Here” and “My Own Worst Enemy”.
Andre Butzer
Working on the same collection as Kramer, the Berlin-based artist tagged clothes and accessories with cartoonish figurations,
including his famous biomorphic monster, known as Wanderer.
Tyson Reeder
The ebullient style of this Chicago-based artist proved the perfect match for Celine’s SS21 runway titled “The Dancing Kid”.
The capsule collection featured a tropical print based on Reeder’s 2019 painting Autobahn,
an abstract blue dreamscape punctuated by whizzing motorcycles and technicolour palm trees.
The Swiss-American audio-visual artist added Pop flair to Slimane’s first Celine show.
The SS19 collection was suffused with his bold comic-strip patterns,
which riff off rock ’n’ roll typography and Roy Lichtenstein artworks.
David Kramer
Slimane enlisted the New York artist to embellish Celine’s SS20 menswear pieces with his signature tongue-in-cheek slogans,
such as “There’s No Irony Here” and “My Own Worst Enemy”.
Andre Butzer
Working on the same collection as Kramer, the Berlin-based artist tagged clothes and accessories with cartoonish figurations,
including his famous biomorphic monster, known as Wanderer.
Tyson Reeder
The ebullient style of this Chicago-based artist proved the perfect match for Celine’s SS21 runway titled “The Dancing Kid”.
The capsule collection featured a tropical print based on Reeder’s 2019 painting Autobahn,
an abstract blue dreamscape punctuated by whizzing motorcycles and technicolour palm trees.
“My grandmother was a skilled manipulator of scale,” says Maria. “She approached a 20ft outdoor installation with the same eye as a three-inch pendant. The pendant is not so much ornamental as an emblem of her creative imperative. Her jewellery pieces are miniature sculptures in their own right.”
Cover image: A pendant dedicated to French sculptor César. Credit: © Celine
