Hedi Slimane is leaving Celine

Celine and Hedi Slimane are parting ways after a fruitful, seven-year collaboration.

Celine's parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton announced her departure in a brief statement.

“Under his creative and artistic direction, Céline has experienced exceptional growth and established itself as an iconic French couture house,” it said.

“Hedi Slimane's overall vision, his dominance and austerity made it possible to redefine the codes of Celine while reaffirming his feminine and Parisian roots,” it continues. “He significantly enriched new territories for the maison such as men's silhouettes, couture and haute perfumery. The extraordinary journey taken together over the past seven years has made Celine a house with a strong foundation for the future.”

Celine declined further comment, including on her succession plan, as did Slimane.

The development adds to the climate of creative uncertainty and instability hanging over the industry, currently grappling with a slowdown in luxury consumption and consumer caution.

As reported, the employment contracts of John Galliano at Maison Margiela, Jonathan Anderson at Lowe's and Jil Sander's Lucy and Luke Meyer are expiring before the end of the year or in early 2025. Chanel, Dries Van Noten and Jean Paul Gaultier also have creative vacancies.

WWD broke the news on April 24 that Céline was preparing for a possible Slimane departure and that Polo Ralph Lauren's creative director Michael Ryder was developing a potential successor.

It will mark a return to Celine for Ryder, who logged a decade as design director of ready-to-wear from 2008 to 2018, working under then-creative director Phoebe Philo.

It is understood that Ryder has already moved to Paris, but is keeping a low profile. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

Slimane's departure comes just three days after he unveiled his spring 2025 women's collection for Celine with a 10-minute film broadcast on the brand's website and social channels.

It reaffirmed Slimane's reputation as a powerful fashion designer, filmmaker and dream weaver, able to crystallize a style and present ideal images that are compelling and precise.

Her women's collection film brings the late French singer and fashion icons Juliette Greco and Francois Hardy to vivid life through bushy brows, heavy eyeliner, baby-doll dresses and embellished tuxedos.

Meanwhile, his latest cardigan jackets, tweed suits, long necklaces and skirts that cover the knees reinforce a widespread belief in the industry that Slimane has the chops, the aesthetic and the vision to take on Chanel, which is currently searching for a successor to Virginie Viard.

Chanel executives told WWD this week that it's not yet ready to reveal its next creative leader — and it's not necessarily looking for a big-name designer.

Slimane cemented his reputation as designer for Dior Homme between 2000 and 2007 — and influenced men's tailoring for more than a decade. 2012 and 2016 — all the while maintaining close ties to the Arnault family, which controls LVMH and Dior.

His next move was not immediately learned. To be sure, he has a track record of revitalizing a brand and then riding it to the height of its success.

In between, he took long sabbaticals to pursue his photography and art.

When Slimane took the design reins at Celine, ordering the heritage brand to expand into menswear, apparel and fragrance, he took a different tack from his previous creative leader, the English designer Phoebe Philore.

“I'm enchanted, what a great choice,” Karl Lagerfeld, one of Slimane's most ardent fans, told WWD at the time of his appointment. “That would be great.”

Slimane immediately brought a burst of cool and youth to Celine, signing up Lalisa Morale from Blackpink and hiring her to walk in a film of his collection during the coronavirus pandemic.

When he attended Slimane's spring 2023 men's show for Celine with BTS member Kim Tae-hyung, better known as V, and his bestie, actor Park Bo-gum, pandemonium ensued.

After a few aesthetic changes, and Slimane ditching the Triumph logo, Céline took off like a rocket, synonymous with cool, French-girl style with a bourgeois twist.

He carefully built Celine into an entire universe, adding stationery, headphones, pet accessories, other lifestyle products and Celine Beauty, the first cosmetics line in the house's history. Lipstick is recently added and an eyeliner is worn.

The beauty line stems from Slimane's launch of the Celine haute parfumerie collection, which debuted in 2019.

However, it is understood that relations between Slimane and LVMH management have become increasingly strained.

Still, it seems Slimane has worked tirelessly to his end of the deal, last week releasing a 445-page hardcover book titled “Céline Art Project,” which details 250 site-specific works of art Slimane created for the brand's flagships around the world.